


May the Force Be Ever In Your Favor

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Finnick/Annie AU, Hunger Games AU, M/M, Media Styled Love Triangle, Pining, Poe Dameron POV, Poe is Finnick, Rey is a combination of Annie and Katniss, The First Order as Careers, Underage Drinking, Violence, references to non-consensual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:51:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 71,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17876267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Poe Dameron wins his Games at fifteen years old.A son of a victor from District Four, his beauty and charm make him very popular in the Capitol. As their hold on his life increases, he finds himself homesick, particularly for his father, his boat, and the girl in the grade below him, the one who he could never quite impress.Poe Dameron wins his Games, of course, but they didn't warn him what he was going to lose.And, when the name of the girl he loves appears in the Reaping a few years later, he has to watch as the Capitol grows obsessed with her love story ... with the tribute from District One.





	1. The 46th Annual Hunger Games

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Valor, Valeria](https://archiveofourown.org/works/813502) by [aimmyarrowshigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh). 



> Hello!
> 
> I drabbled this last summer, but after a late night conversation with aimmyarrowshigh, I decided to expand this little AU - verse (aka that time I realized that aimmyarrowshigh wrote one of the saddest Finnick/Annie fics I ever read way back in my youth)
> 
> Heavy warnings ahead, please, always check the chapter notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Intense, graphic violence (stabbings, drownings) death of multiple characters (including off-screen death of mother)
> 
> WARNING: Multiple people sexually proposition Poe, and he is 15 years old. It's implied that sexual abuse/grooming by the Capitol begins then. An older woman kisses Poe without his permission.  
> (Yes, I am still angry Finnick didn't get a happy ending in THG)

Poe Dameron liked to think the sea went on forever.

When he sat out on the boat his father built, the waves rocking underneath him, he would face westward, weaving nets without looking while his father sang songs in a forbidden language behind him. When he looked westward, all he’d envision was a single boat on the horizon, churning steadily eastward, towards the shore.

In his vision, when the boat pulled up next to theirs, he’d look up and see his mother, just as strong and beautiful as she was on the day she left, the day she took the boat out, the day the boat didn’t come back in.

Peacekeepers had told his father while an eight-year-old Poe hovered in the back room of their house in the Victor’s Village -  _ a storm,  _ they’d said,  _ must have caught her off-guard.  _ But even at eight, Poe knew. No cloud had crossed the western horizon that day. No squall had stirred the waves. His mother was gone, and when he ran to his father after the men had left, Kes knelt on the floor, beyond tears.

Kes held him tight and whispered apologies in a forbidden language; Poe didn’t know what he was apologizing for. He only knew two things:

  * His mother was dead.
  * There were no storms that day.



***

Poe Dameron was Reaped at fifteen years old.

In the small office that older citizens of District Four claimed was once a ship captain’s quarters, Poe held his father tight, and once again, Kes whispered apologies to him in a forbidden language.

“ _ ¿Por que lo sientes, Papi?”  _ He knew he could be whipped in the town square for speaking even a word in something other than Panemi, but somehow the Reaping put that threat in perspective.

“This isn’t your fight.” Kes wiped his eyes and shook his head when Poe pressed him for details. “No, we don’t - we don’t have time. Just-”

They were still embracing when the Peacekeepers came, and Poe had to be wrenched away from his father like a criminal, gloved hands gripping his upper arms and pulling him away.

Poe didn’t know what left the worse bruise:

The hands, or -

His father’s broken voice saying “ _ Te amo, mijo, te amo -  _ ” until the remaining Peacekeeper hit him in the gut with a baton, causing him to fold like an accordian as Poe screamed for him.

One bruise faded three weeks later, mid-training; the other never quite went away.

***

Poe had understood since he was thirteen that he was more beautiful than most people.

His classmates fought to be partners with him during competitions and races. Girls giggled behind their hands when he spoke in class. He could charm extra protein from the adults in the market with a wink and a smile by the age of fourteen.

His father caught him doing precisely that on a memorable August afternoon, a little less than a year before he was Reaped.

Poe found himself dragged by the ear to a nearby alley, and his father pushed him against the wall, more roughly than he’d ever treated him.

“ _ Dad _ ,” Poe whined, rubbing his ear.

“Never. Do that. Again,” Kes hissed, his finger in Poe’s face. Poe swatted at it, mulishly defensive in the way teenage boys often were when their logic was questioned.

“Why not?” Poe demanded. “Huh? It got us more food, didn’t it?”  After he and his father had been evicted from the Victor’s Village following his mother’s death, extra protein was a necessity.

He waved the packet of fish under Kes’s nose, and his father’s furious expression collapsed so quickly, Poe felt winded. Kes grabbed the fish and weighed it in his hand. With a large sigh, his father tossed it to the side, so that it splattered against the ground. Poe shouted in protest until his father turned his eyes, heavy with some unspoken weight, to his face.

“You are worth more than extra fish, Poe Bey Dameron.” Kes’s bottom lip quivered, and Poe stared at it in shock, inexplicable tears coming to his own eyes. “Promise me you’ll remember that.”

“I -”

“Promise me you will  _ never _  do something like that again.”

_ But it got us more food -  _ Poe still wanted to argue. Somehow, he could tell this was a fight he didn’t want to start. So, he swallowed dryly and nodded.

“I promise, papa.”

On his very first day in the Capitol, Poe Dameron realized what his father meant; only this time, instead of fish, it was weapons, special treatment, and favors he could get.

Halfway through a conversation with a woman with purple hair, Poe looked across the roaring party, the one attended by many of the Capitols’ wealthiest - he saw the president himself, Reginald Snoke, lift a champagne glass towards him, a twisted, pleased smile on his scarred face. Poe felt cold flush down his spine, in a way he didn’t understand.

That is, until the woman grabbed his forearm to reclaim his attention, her nails digging in like a gull’s talons into his arm. “What would a handsome young man need in the arena?” she cooed at him, her hands now on the front of his ridiculous outfit, a toga that looked like it belonged in the old stories his mother used to tell him, about Greece and heroes and Olympus. Half his chest was on display, the hardwon muscles he’d built on his father’s boat now shown off for others, his light brown skin apparently a rarity in the Capitol (“A  _ real  _ tan!” one of the heinous, faceless citizens had oozed at him earlier).

“I…” He licked his bottom lip nervously, a habit he’d developed on the deck of a ship, a habit to wipe away salt water from sensitive skin. There was no saltwater here, but the woman’s eyes tracked hungrily to the movement regardless. “...I hadn’t … I’m not sure.” He felt weak, and stupid, and foolish.

“Well, if you think of something.” She patted his bare chest, and Poe wanted to vomit.

“Lucretia, my dear, give the boy some room.” Snoke had appeared, and he smiled passively at the woman as she fluttered her eyelashes, smiled until she wandered away. After she had left, the president turned steel-blue eyes onto Poe, who felt as though he’d done something wrong.

Irrationally, he thought of his father, alone in a small house in District Four, and fear curdled in his stomach.

“If you are going to flirt with one of my advisors, I suggest you have an endgame in mind.”

“No sir,” Poe gasped, desperately. “I wasn’t - I didn’t mean to-”

“No?” Snoke tilted his head at him and smirked coldly. “Then you’re stupider than I thought you were. There’s more than one way to win the Games, boy.” Without so much as another blink, Snoke walked away, towards a gaggle of advisors.

Twenty minutes later, two men with orange skin and green hair patted his arms, and Poe bit back the urge to vomit.

“So sad, isn’t it, Thelonious?” The man on the right pouted as he stroked Poe’s shoulder. “So beautiful. So young.”

“It’s a tragedy, Phileas.” The man on the left sighed regretfully while Poe stood, frozen like a statue. He’d taken the time to look around the party - none of the other tributes were attracting this attention. He was pretty sure the little girl from Eleven, terrifyingly skinny, was asleep in the corner, forgotten like a baby bird that fell out of the nest.

“Tragic?” Poe’s voice felt funny coming out of his throat, but it got the men to blink in surprise. He grinned at them, an approximation of the grin he’d always saved for the older girls at school, for the pretty girls who lounged at the docks. It felt filthy on his face, like a streak of slime from a fish dragged in too clumsily. “How could it be tragic, when I’m here with you?”

Thelonious and Phileas ooo’ed and aaa’ed in equal measure, their hands now flying to their face as their stiff skin stretched into an expression of appreciation and flattery. Poe smirked, tasting the bile in the back of his throat.

When they offered him a flute of champagne, he accepted with a wink. None of the other tributes were offered champagne, he noticed. When they pulled him towards the industrial sector’s business leaders, Poe told them silly stories about his District, fake tales about daring rescues at sea, about serving his beloved Capitol. He laughed sweetly and nodded when one of the painted people showed him their cubed tuna and asked if he could have caught it, and they turned chemically altered shades of purple after he hinted that he was  _ more than happy to serve. _

Other tributes glared at him from around the room, but Poe didn’t care, emboldened by his now-warm reception, the attention, and the champagne in his system.

After he’d spoken to what felt like every citizen of the Capitol, Poe excused himself to use the restroom, ignoring the offer of one much older man to accompany him there. He stumbled around the corner, and smacked into the back of another tribute.

“Sorry,” Poe mumbled miserably. “Sorry - ah, fuck.” He vomited finally, into an urn that seemed to be there for precisely that purpose, judging by how quickly his sick vanished.

“Still getting your sea legs, then?” The tribute joked, and Poe looked up into the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen.

_ Why were any of them flirting with  _ Poe,  _ when this tribute had eyes that shone like gold? _

“Uh.” Poe blinked and wiped his mouth stupidly, standing up as tall as he could. He felt much more sober now.

“You know...because...District Four?” The boy, who looked to be about Poe’s age, looked slightly unsure of himself now.

“No!” Poe willed his mouth to close. “No, I get it. It’s - it was good. Funny.”

“I’m sure.” The boy laughed though, a gentle sound that seemed in that moment every bit as necessary and familiar as the sound of waves against the shore. He extended a hand to the tribute, marveling at the way his skin looked against his, a darker shade of brown than his own.

“Poe Dameron,” he said, his voice thinner than usual.

“Willum Muran,” the tribute replied, his smile too soft to be safe in this lion’s den. “I usually go by Muran, though.” Poe cleared his throat, but then he heard the unmistakable Capitol accent of one of his patrons from earlier. He groaned and looked over his shoulder. Muran grasped his hand tighter and pulled him into the shadows behind a lime green column.

The gaggle of Capitol residents passed, giggling about something or other, their dull eyes searching for something, or someone. They vanished from sight, and Poe heaved a side of relief, tilting his head back to rest against the column.

“Thank you,” he whispered weakly. Muran squeezed his hand but didn’t say anything.

They stayed there for the rest of the party, and although Poe knew he was wasting valuable time with people who could save him in the arena, it somehow didn’t feel worth as much as Muran’s hand in his.

***

For all his flirting, Poe had never actually kissed anyone before. Despite his charm and appearance, he’d never been able to get the attention of the  _ one  _ person in District Four who he wanted to look at him like he was someone.

The thin girl who’d skipped a grade - unheard of, by that point, in the District - who sat in the classroom across from his, thirteen years old but smarter than anyone Poe had ever met: she didn’t seem to care that Poe Dameron was  _ handsome.  _ She never cared that he had thick, curly black hair that most girls tried to pet without permission. She couldn’t be bothered to learn his schedule like the other girls in her grade, his grade, and the other grades. She never so much as giggled at even his best jokes, at his most obvious attempts to please as he roughhoused with other boys outside of class, not fifteen feet from her.

She never blinked twice when he picked her to be his partner in races in the schoolyard.

No one called him on it, either - she ran faster than everyone else, and it could have just been strategy that drove Poe to pick her, over and over again. But she never picked him back, more content to finish races and competitions by herself. She never picked anyone, and Poe was sure if she ever picked him, he’d ascend to the next plane of existence because there was no possible honor on this earth higher than being picked by Old Ben’s beloved granddaughter.

***

Willum Muran kissed as softly as he smiled. He moved slowly towards Poe as they hid out of sight in a training room, some two weeks after they’d met. Poe, suddenly, acutely aware that one or both of them would be dead in a few weeks, found that there was nothing in the world he wanted to do as much as have his first kiss with someone kind, someone with eyes prettier than the sun.

Afterwards, they broke apart, looking around guiltily.

Homosexuality was banned in the Districts, Poe knew (knew all too well, having seen his father’s friends pulled violently from their home as it burned, the Peacekeepers swarming like vultures). But here in the Capitol, he’d seen people kiss, do far more than kiss, without any kind of discretion. Still, he felt a thrilling sort of terror that they might have been seen. No spotlight shone on them, no Peacekeepers so much as looked in their direction, so he and Muran giggled nervously and separated, walking back into the training room at different angles, so it didn’t look like they were together.

As Poe tested out a spear in the corner, though, he felt eyes on him. His hands now trembling, he looked over his shoulder, up at the viewing room full of Gamemasters, Peacekeepers, and officials.

President Snoke stared at him, and Poe knew. He knew without a doubt, that he had seen.

He shook his head and turned back around, forcing himself to breathe, forcing his hands to stop trembling. He hefted the spear in his hand and imagined a fish swimming alongside a small boat. Poe took aim, and threw -

It thudded perfectly in the middle of the target.

When he turned back around, Snoke lifted his chin in recognition with a smile that was more terrifying than anything he’d ever seen.

The trainer handed him a trident next, and Poe showed them all exactly what he was capable of.

But, even as he threw a net around a holographic contender and speared them with his weapon, Poe felt that it was  _ him  _ who was in the trap, who couldn’t escape, who bled out slowly on the training room floor.

***

When he’d been Reaped, he looked out into the audience as he stood on the platform, and his eyes had found her instantly. He was always aware of where she was in space.

She stood there with the other girls her age, her brown hair braided back from her face, and he swore he could count the freckles on her cheeks and neck from a hundred feet away.

Poe didn’t think she’d cry for him. He wasn’t that stupid.

But, she didn’t look away from him either, even after the Capitol’s representative had finished their speech and grabbed Poe’s hand at the same time they grabbed Marlin Osullev’s hand, lifting them in the air.

He couldn’t breathe, and not because he was about to die, but because she was  _ finally  _ looking at him.

And as he was pulled backwards by the Peacekeeper, after his feet forgot how to work, he swore he saw her perfect, pink mouth part and form his name.

***

Marlin Osullev died less than a minute after the countdown ended.

Poe stared at her body in horror, at the blood pooling from the wound on her neck, before he remembered himself, grabbed the trident from the Cornucopia, and sprinted for the water.

He dove into the calm, the water embracing him, surrounding him, welcoming him home. He streaked under the surface, barely aware of the continuing din above him.

By the time he climbed up the opposite shore, strengthened by his swim, the melee had slowed.

Slowly, inexorably, the cannon echoed across the arena.

_ One _

_ Two _

_ Three _

_ Four _

_ Five _

_ Six _

_ Seven _

Poe counted as the death toll mounted, his eyes widening in horror; he surveyed the water, still calm and beautiful, but as he watched one tribute dive under the surface, less than five seconds later, an inexplicable bloom of red blossomed on the surface.

Something was in the water.

_ So why hadn’t it found him _ ?

An odd thought occurred to him, but he banished it as he turned and fled into the hills, the hills that echoed so strangely the hills of District Four. He found a tree and climbed it quickly, his trident loose in his hand.

By the end of the day, he’d counted fifteen cannons, and their faces flashed across the evening sky as the Capitol’s anthem soared. He released a breath he knew he’d been holding when Marlin’s face was the first to appear.

“ Aleha ha-shalom,” he whispered, his cheeks flushing as the words slipped out, the words in perhaps the most forbidden language in Panem. Poe closed his eyes for a moment, wishing peace onto her before he stared back at the sky, not as shaken as he’d thought he be.

As horrible as it was to lose his district partner, he’d known she was gone. This meant the male tribute from District Three was still alive. Willum Muran was still alive.

He pressed his head back against the bark and tried to calm his breathing fully, his hands tight on the trident.

The thought from earlier crossed his mind again, unavoidable now in the dark: this arena seemed designed for a swimmer, for someone familiar with climbing and comfortable with humidity. The trident had been pointed towards his spoke of the wheel. And, no one had found him yet, even as a shrill scream cut across the forested hills, ending painfully with cannon fire.

Eight left.

Not even six hours in, and only eight remained, here in an arena that might as well have been built for him.

Poe cleared his throat and stretched his neck out, eyeing the sky nervously. His stomach rumbled, a reminder that he’d need to eat and drink something soon if he wanted to survive. He smiled, toothily, and gave a wink up to the sky.

Quietly, he began to sing, a nonsensical song that had been passed down District Four, about a sailor returning home from the water, and right before he was supposed to name his lady love, he trailed off dramatically and sighed.

It worked.

A few minutes later, a blinking package dropped from the sky, and when he opened the small, silver box, he found what amounted to a feast, complete with two full canteens and a bottle of iodine, no doubt to clean whatever water he managed to find in here.

Poe blew a kiss to the sky before diving in, saving half of it for the next day. With a groan, he settled back against the bark, making sure to fix a smile to his face before falling into an uneasy slumber.

***

He found Muran the next day, fending off what looked like nightmarish merman, who’d pulled him towards the water, hissing and biting.

Poe cleaned Muran’s leg as well as he could and gritted his teeth at the blood that refused to stop pouring.

No matter how hard he smiled at the sky, no medicine came.

***

They huddled together in a massive rainstorm, under a tarp that Poe had found near the bodies of the tributes from District Eleven.

When he’d gotten there, they hadn’t removed the corpses yet, and Poe couldn’t stop the sob that escaped his mouth when he saw the little girl.

Her name was Ophelia, and her brown eyes had stared sightlessly at the sky as it started to rain. Poe delicately closed her eyelids, smoothed the bloody hair from her face, and grabbed the tarp that they’d been hauling when the Careers had ambushed them. Her partner, Flax, thirteen years old, had clearly thrown himself in front of Ophelia when the attack started.

“I’m sorry,” Poe had whispered before running through the trees, alerted to the sound of approaching footsteps. “Lo siento, descansa en paz -” He sprinted to where Muran waited, and they ran together, not stopping until they reached a rocky outcrop that protected them from almost every side.

He and Muran held each other - only five left now, a day and a half into the Games, three Careers, and he and Muran.

Poe hadn’t killed anyone. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Muran had killed, twice, to save himself, and his golden eyes shone a little less brightly now, something Poe hoped was an effect of the weather and nothing else.

As the rain roared overhead, no doubt affecting the fun of the Games for the time being, Poe curled into Muran’s warmth a little more under the tarp. They exchanged a look before leaning in, their lips sliding together, and Poe discovered that maybe he remembered what tenderness was after all.

The rain slowed overhead, and Muran smiled into the kiss.

***

The Careers found them as they were walking back from the shoreline.

Poe was pinned down, screaming and lashing out, by the grim-faced boy from One, and the cackling girl from Two.

The girl from One stabbed Muran with a grin, her dagger long and deadly; every time the blade entered Muran’s body, Poe screamed in agony.

“Now, then -” The girl from One stood up, her dagger dripping blood. She tilted her head to the side and pouted at Poe. “Let’s see if the Capitol still loves you with half a face.” Right as she knelt at Poe’s side, a distinctive rumble started at the center of the arena.

“What the fuck?” The boy from One stood and scowled, his partner rolling her eyes.

“It’s nothing, Flash.”

“It’s an earthquake,” Poe laughed, spitting some blood as he did. His side burned in pain - they’d broken his ribs and probably ruptured something when they’d attacked.

Muran stared at Poe from across the ground, and Poe fought the urge to whimper as the ground vibrated with increasing intensity, the power of it rolling across the arena. “Hold on,” he mouthed, and Muran shook his head with a weak smile.

“Win,” Muran mouthed back.

A particularly vicious tremor knocked the boy from One to the ground, the girl from One barely staying on her feet, and Poe seized his chance.

He kicked the girl from Two viciously off of him, and she fell backwards with a shriek. Grabbing his net - that he’d  _ just  _ used to catch fish for him and Muran, how had this gone to shit so quickly - Poe snared her, grabbed his trident, and struck.

The points entered her chest and exited with a sickly squealch. She shuddered for breath, and the other two Careers attempted to stumble towards him, but Poe was better, faster, and furious.

Muran coughed weakly, but he blocked the sound out, twisting and stabbing the boy from One in the throat - he didn’t even know their name, he thought hysterically, these faceless children who were just as fucked as he was - and then knocking the girl from One on her ass.

_ Make it hurt,  _ something in him urged.  _ She killed Muran. _

But she looked up at him with limpid eyes, his boot on her neck, her small hands curled around his foot as she gasped for breath. All Poe felt was pity.

He hefted his trident in his hand and twirled it effortlessly. He stabbed her in the heart, twice, and he felt her die under his foot.

Three cannons fired, and the ground continued to shake.

Three cannons.

Muran was still alive.

“No.” Poe whispered, falling to his knees at his side. “Hey - hey, you’ll - you’ll be okay.” His side twinged angrily, and Poe coughed, the motion creating searing pain. There was a damp spot under his shirt, and he refused to check, refused to see what they’d done to him while he’d been screaming for Muran. “You’re okay.”

He petted his close shorn hair, and sobbed, the sob turning into another cough.

“Poe.” One word, a staggering sound as Muran struggled to breathe. The other boy grabbed at his trident and looked at Poe meaningfully.

“No.” The ground vibrated more intensely, and cracks began to form in the dirt underneath them. “ _ No,  _ I won’t. I won’t.” He shook his head, and the cracks opened in the very near distance. “Fuck you!” He screamed at the sky, wildly. “Fuck all of you!”

“Hey.” Muran trailed his hand along Poe’s forearm, leaving a trail of sticky blood behind. He squeezed Poe’s hand with a smile, his teeth stained red.

“Hey.” Poe snorted a laugh and shook his head. Muran squeezed one last time and closed his eyes.

“Please?” The word was half-formed, but Poe nodded, his shoulders drooping.

“Yeah.” He curved his body over Muran’s, ignoring the increasing earthquake. “I’m sorry.”

He hefted the trident one last time, his aim true. Muran’s eyes opened at the last second, the sun reflecting in them, and when he smiled, Poe felt his heart shatter, even as the earth below stilled.

***

They were one of the shortest games in history, just under two and a half days long. Poe emerged from the arena, barely needing to be rebuilt.

During his post-Games interview, the audience screamed  for him, and he waved as cheerfully as possible.

He was about to go home, after all. Who cared about the next few days.

When they played back the games, he noticed that two key things were missing:

  * He never kissed Muran
  * He never screamed furiously at the sky, at the Capitol that sent them out there to die



Things they managed to include:

  * His tears over Ophelia (the audience cried as the Poe on screen did)
  * His efficient murder of the Careers (it was like watching another person do it, Poe moved so coldly, in such a calculated manner, without hesitation)
  * His time spent in the water, his shirt off, skin gleaming in the sun
  * His smiles and winks at the camera
  * His singing



By the end of the interview, Poe wanted to curl into a ball and sleep for a month.

Instead, he was sent directly to a party where his patrons, the ones who had paid for him to survive, waited for him. They all wanted a piece of him.

“Next year,” one of them sighed as they patted his styled curls. “A little too young right now.”

Poe stared at them in confusion as they wandered off; the confusion gave away to a sickening realization, only compounded by a wealthy woman, three times his age, seizing him and kissing him, shrieking in delight that  _ she got to him first! _

He was handed a glass of champagne, and then another, and then another, and he drank every single one.

***

Poe Dameron did not go home the day after his interview.

***

He returned a month after his Games ended.

Only his father waited for him at the station, and as they walked through town, towards the Victors’ Village, people nodded in respect, but stayed away.

When he went back to school - which had started two weeks before his return - girls didn’t giggle behind their hands anymore when he spoke. Boys didn’t push each other to stand near him. People smiled sadly at him when he winked.

The secret of what they’d done to him in the Capitol was not as secret as he’d thought. Poe felt the waking shame of it, every time he took a step, weighing him down and pulling him, like the tide, towards a darkness he couldn’t escape.

By the end of the school day, Poe dragged himself to the doors, his knapsack high on his back. It was going to be a lonely walk back to Victor’s Village; he walked past the kids lining up to race, and they stood and straightened as he passed by.

No one called out his name.

But, as he cast a glance over them, a hollow feeling rising in his chest, he met a pair of hazel eyes he’d refused to think of since he fell asleep in a tree to the sound of cannon fire.

She lifted her chin in greeting, and he didn’t return the gesture, didn’t stop walking.

When he reached the gate, he didn’t turn left, to the eastern path that led to his new house. He turned right, and walked to the sea.

Poe walked along the dock, the smell of the water hitting him hard, the sound of waves too similar to the waves that had caught him even as they killed others, and sat at the edge of it.

He wasn’t going back to school. He’d never go back to school. That part of his life was over, the promise of a normal future was gone. He’d come out of the Games, but into something unfamiliar, unrecognizable.

Poe wished that his mother was here, a fellow Victor who’d held her head high and refused to bend to anything. He wished anyone were here that he could talk to.

There was a sound of footsteps down the dock, and Poe cleared his throat and wiped his eyes, reaching for his wallet. He didn’t have much, but he did have credits, and if this was a private pier, he could offer some money to whoever had come out to chastise him for trespassing.

Instead of a reprimand, though, a figure sat down next to him, legs almost as long as his unfolding and dangling over the pier.

Poe looked over at her, mystified, as she stared out to the sea, her freckles more numerous now at the end of summer, her hair redder than it had been before. She didn’t say a word, not at first.

Then, so slowly he thought he could be imagining it, she reached over and covered his hand with her own.

“Fuck them all,” Rey Kenobi whispered, her eyes not breaking with the horizon. Poe nodded, once, and looked out across the water as well.

They didn’t move until the sun sank over the ocean, and when Poe studied her in the dying light, her skin awash with the orange softness, he thought to himself, privately, that maybe this was worth winning, worth everything that followed.

In three years’ time, he would discover how very wrong he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter:
> 
> The 49th Annual Hunger Games
> 
>  
> 
> (Rey is 16, Poe is 18 in the next chapter. Ben is 17, and a tribute from District One who becomes interested in Rey after seeing her fight)
> 
> EDIT: The next chapter takes place between Poe and Rey's Games, and the /third/ chapter will be Rey's Games/Ben's Games


	2. The 47th and 48th Annual Hunger Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe Dameron spends two years as a mentor to doomed tributes; he grows closer to Rey Kenobi, drawn in like the tide, despite knowing that he can never act on his feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (So yes, this chapter happened unexpectedly - I got to 8000 words, and Rey hadn't even been Reaped yet, so I figured I'd just publish this and add a chapter to the count)
> 
> WARNING: A creepy older man offers to trade sexual favors with a fourteen year old girl for money.
> 
> WARNING: Implied death/dead bodies
> 
> WARNING: Poe mentions his 'clients' and the way he feels after seeing them. I don't intend to depict any sexual violence in this fic. Poe is 16/17 in this chapter, and it ends right around the time he turns 18. 
> 
> WARNING: Poe, again, shares Finnick's storyline and is forced into sexual slavery for the Capitol as a teenager (16-18). He takes drugs with a client, and then uses their vulnerability to extract secrets about the Capitol/Empire.

Poe Dameron walked through the back alleys of the Market, the smell of fish lingering in the air, sickly and cloying and a little bit like home.

It was February, bordering on March; he was sixteen years old, and the Capitol had just sent him a summons to return for the spring season.

He wasn’t so stupid to think it an invitation. Not when Snoke himself had signed the message, not when the message said, at the end, _“And be so kind to say hello to your father,_ ” a reminder that Poe was not in a position to turn down a summons from the Capitol, not when Kes Dameron’s heart still beat.

Poe had said no in December.

His grandfather - 57 years old, vibrant, funny, a talented fisherman who could swim for an hour still - died of a heart attack two days later.

Now, Poe understood a little better. He just wondered if his father could ever forgive him. Kes had to live to be able to forgive him.

He chose to walk by himself through the Market today, his hands crammed in his pocket, his knit hat crammed over his curls; he’d hoped it would give him some anonymity, to be swathed in his father’s old fishing jacket for deeper sea voyages, to have his trademark hair hidden, but wherever Poe went, he got a wide berth. People knew it was Poe Dameron, the second to last surviving Victor of District Four. They knew that he meant death.

The thought that his friends, his classmates, his family, had seen him kill three people, three children, in less than thirty seconds often found new and creative ways to keep Poe from sleeping. He had yet to turn to the medical grade sleeping pills that were ever so conveniently stored in his bathroom (he hadn’t bought them, hadn’t ordered them, and when he’d flushed them the first day he found them, they reappeared as though by magic the very next morning), but they grew more and more tempting, as did the moonshine sold from under the stall in the fifth row of the Marketplace.

He’d almost turned the corner towards the main Market, thinking that maybe he _would_ get to that stall today - he left in six days, what did he have to lose - when he overheard a heated conversation. Poe stopped and listened carefully, his hand on the wall of the alleyway.

“-You’ll get your portions, girlie.”

“I don’t want portions.” It was Rey Kenobi, who Poe hadn’t seen in almost a month.

\- She’d shown up on his doorstep on a miserable January afternoon, having walked the three miles from the school to his house in Victor’s Village. Rey had come by every day since he’d stopped coming to school, with his work and her notes in her knapsack. For a while, Poe allowed himself to invite her in, to sit her down at his table while she calmly went over all the things he’d missed in school that day. He told himself that he wasn’t interfering with her life - he offered her bread, after all, and cheese and jam and her favorite chocolates, painted to look like seashells, while they worked, and Rey Kenobi was still painfully, painfully thin - but on a particularly bad afternoon in late January, Poe had woken up from an ill-advised nap, half-dazed and convinced he was still in the arena.

And when Rey Kenobi knocked on his front door, looking like everything good and strong and whole, everything he wasn’t, he remembered why he shouldn’t talk to her. So he told her in a cold voice that almost echoed with the vowels of the Capitol to never come back.

She didn’t. -

But she was here, though, not even fifteen feet away from him, and Poe’s hand curled loosely into a fist against the wall as he closed his eyes and debated turning the corner.

However, his mind was quickly made up for him:

“If not for portions, then why did you come crawling to my stall?”

“I need …” Rey cleared her throat and paused for a long time. “I need credits, Teedo.” Poe wrinkled his nose. Teedo was _foul,_ with no respect for anyone or anything. The older man snorted though, and Rey’s voice rose slightly, curdling Poe’s stomach. It had an edge of desperation to it, something he’d never heard in her typically calm, steady, musical voice. “ _Please_. I’ll - I’m good for the work, you know I am.”

“Thought you said you’d never work for me again?” Teedo sounded pleased with himself, and Poe felt his insides ripping apart from the decision of _step out from the corner and offer her all the credits in his pocket,_ or _stay here because Rey Kenobi’s always been proud._

“I … I did. But, I was being stupid, Teedo. Please? I’ll - I need the credits.”

If Poe had discovered one thing in his time in the Capitol, in the three weeks he spent trapped there after his games, it was that you _never_ let anyone know you needed something. Especially a person as cruel as -

“I don’t want your work.”

“Why not?” Rey’s voice sharpened, and it sounded more like the ferocious competitor from the schoolyard. “Huh? I’m the best damn scrapper you know. You can’t tell me otherwise.”

 _Rey was a Scrapper? What -_ Poe thought it was illegal for people under the age of sixteen to go down to the shipwrecks off the coast.

“Don’t want scrap.” Teedo’s voice shifted to something lower, and Poe had to strain to hear. “Want something else, girlie.”

“What are you - don’t touch me.” Rey snarled, and Poe began to walk forward without realizing it. “No, that’s not what I-”

“You said you _needed_ the credits. How bad did you need them?”

“I-” Rey’s voice trembled, and Poe charged forward now, jogging around the corner. “I said don’t touch me-”

Teedo laughed cruelly, and neither one noticed him as he rushed towards them. Rey was up against the wall, her face torn between terror and calculation, the staff she usually carried limp in her hand as Teedo studied her face with a smirk, his grubby hand on her upper arm.

“Get the fuck away from her.” Poe was on him in an instant, right as they both turned and finally saw him; he gripped Teedo by the back of the shirt and threw him into the opposite wall.

“Poe?” Rey cried from behind him, but Poe was too busy contending with Teedo, who lunged towards him with a snarl.

Poe swung without thinking, catching him in the throat. Teedo fell back with a choked noise of pain, and before he could stumble forward again, Poe grabbed the knife he always carried, the knife that was far too long to be called any kind of utility knife, and held it out with a raised eyebrow.

Teedo panted, eyeing the blade warily, and Poe smiled dementedly. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said quietly. “You know I’ll do it.”

“Fucking -” Teedo glared over Poe’s shoulder and then back into Poe’s face. His watery, beady eyes were bloodshot, a sign of the drink he often indulged in. Poe’s stomach twisted at the smell of brine and liquor pouring off of him. “No hard feelings, girlie.” Teedo addressed Rey, but his eyes were still studying Poe. Then, his lips twisted into a smirk. “Smart business decision. Opening your legs for him will get you a lot more credits.”

The rage burning in Poe’s chest flared for a moment before quieting into something closer to nausea. He didn’t drop the knife though, and Teedo sidled away, his palms pressed to the wall behind him, until he’d cleared Poe’s reach; then, he sprinted down the alley and out of sight. Poe didn’t turn around.

“Poe?” Rey spoke first, and he grunted in acknowledgement, shoving the knife back at his side. He didn’t want to turn around and see the fear in her eyes, the fear that had been in the eyes of almost every resident of District Four since he returned last September. Rey had never looked at him with fear, not during any of their lessons, not when his fists clenched against the table and he fought for breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth, when a memory overwhelmed him without warning.

But she’d be afraid now.

“Poe?” Rey tugged on his arm, and Poe jerked away from the unexpected touch. “...Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Poe finally looked at her, but her expression gave him pause. Rey didn’t have pity in her eyes or fear. She was as assessing as ever.

“Because you don’t like…” Rey trailed off and shrugged before turning to grab her staff from the ground. “Anyway. Thanks. It’ll be easier for me to trade with Teedo in the future if I wasn’t the one who kicked his ass.”

“You’re going to trade with him?” Poe fought the bile in his throat.

“Not like that.” Rey shrugged again, dispassionately. Poe relaxed, if only slightly. Rey Kenobi was fourteen fucking years old - and Teedo wasn’t the worst trader out there. If _he’d_ suggested such a thing, that could only mean that others would too. And they might not be as restrained.  “He’s good for a scrap trade, though.”

“Why do you need the credits?” Poe cursed himself the second the question slipped out, if only for how quickly Rey’s expression shuttered. “It’s just - I-”

“I don’t want your charity,” Rey snapped, her face turning bright red. _It’s not charity if you’re my friend,_ Poe wanted to whisper. But Rey Kenobi wasn’t his friend. He made damn sure of that.

_Why would she want to be friends with a murderer? With the Capitol’s plaything?_

“Sorry.” Poe cleared his throat and shoved his hands in the pockets of his too-big coat. “Sorry.”

He was sorry for a lot of things these days.

“No. I’m sorry.” Rey shook her head and wrapped her arms around her middle. Poe frowned, noticing the holes in her threadbare sweater. It was too cold to be walking around without a coat, and before he could do something stupid like give her _his_ coat, she looked at him, and he froze where he stood. “Obi Wan’s sick.” Her voice cracked for the first time in Poe’s memory, and his stomach sank.

“Shit.” Poe reached out but thought better of it before she could see, his hand dropping back to limply hang at his side. She didn’t want him to touch her.

Rey nodded as though she’d heard his thought and agreed. “He, uh” - she wiped her nose with her wrist before closing her eyes tightly - “Took a bad turn this morning. I just needed the fever meds, but they jacked the price again. Fifty credits, not thirty.”

“Fifty credits?” Poe asked incredulously. They sold that shit for five in the Capitol - he’d bought it himself in August after he’d woken up in the middle of the night with an ache in his bones that he wanted to blame on sickness.

“I tried everything else,” Rey continued, as though he hadn’t spoken. “Every herb, every treatment. But he’s not getting better, and...and…” She looked over her shoulder, to where Teedo had disappeared. “I pissed the pharmacist off by yelling at him over the price. I should have just said yes,” she whispered, eyes haunting.

“No.” Poe walked forward, his temper flaring. “No you shouldn’t have. Rey. Why don’t - I can barter for you.”

“What?” Rey snorted and eyed him suspiciously. “You?”

“I can barter,” Poe said, his best teasing voice, the one he’d had before the Games, creeping back in. “What? You think I just get by on my looks alone?” The joke rang hollowly in his ear, but Rey snorted.

“That ugly mug?” She smirked at his noise of indignation but then she shrugged. “It’s worth a shot, I guess.” Rey pulled out the crumpled notes from her pocket and handed them over. “It’s thirty,” she said defensively when Poe subconsciously started to count.

“Yeah.” Poe nodded and tucked the money safely into his palm. “I’ll go work my magic, Kenobi.” He even batted his eyelashes at her, the expression undercut by the way he puckered his mouth. Rey snorted again and shoved at his arm playfully.

“He’ll probably just give it to you for free, so he can get your awful breath away from his stall.” Rey clapped a hand to her mouth and winced. “Sorry. Sorry, you’re doing something nice for me, and-”

Poe laughed, a real, genuine laugh that made neglected muscles in his stomach ache. “You’re a piece of work, Kenobi.”

“You know it, Dameron.” Her smile, hesitant and unforced, was back, and it unspooled through Poe like a golden ball of thread.

“I know.” His eyes were too serious, he knew, so he fake-saluted and walked down the alley towards the pharmacist’s stall.

When he got there, the man rolled his eyes at Poe’s offer of the money for the meds.

“You want it? Fifty credits.”

“It was thirty last week,” Poe growled. The rumpled credits smashed between his palm and the counter of the stall as he glared at the other man. The pharmacist looked at him closer, and saw who he was. He paled, but then his shrewd eyes narrowed.

“Fifty-five.”

Poe stiffened but then looked over his shoulder at a gaggle of girls his own age whispering behind their hands and pointing at him. He smiled at them charmingly - they looked a little dazed - and then looked back at the pharmacist with the same, tacky smile.

“Alright,” he purred. “Fifty-five.” He pulled out his wallet and counted out an extra forty credits, crisp and new. “Keep the change, honey.” Poe slid twenty credits of Rey’s money, and his own forty, across the counter.

“Thank you?” The shopkeeper blinked at him in surprise, and Poe waggled his fingers at him with an exaggerated wink.

“Have a nice day,” he said, mimicking the accent of the Capitol as he strolled away from the counter, paper bag in hand.

When he rounded the corner to where Rey waited anxiously, he held out the bottle, and she rushed forward.

“You didn’t-”

“Nah.” The lie came easily, and Poe shrugged lightly. “I just turned on the old Dameron charm.”

“And he didn’t charge extra?” Rey grinned at him though, and then down at the bottle.

“No, he even took off some money.” Poe held out the remaining, crumpled ten credits, and Rey’s mouth parted slightly. He tried not to look. He failed. “Uhm.”

Something twisted in her face, and Poe suspected she’d figured out his lie. However, she caught him by surprise when she threw her thin arms around his neck without warning.

Poe hated to be touched these days, but there was something different about holding Rey Kenobi, her body a little too cool to be called warm, but her breath hot and real against his neck.

After a few moments standing like this, Poe realized that he had yet to hold her back. Two heartbeats later, he felt brave enough to wrap one arm, and then another, around her.

It felt like the most thrilling mistake he’d ever made.

***

Obi-Wan Kenobi got better, and Rey Kenobi started showing up at Poe’s doorstep the next morning, her knapsack full of books and figures and notes. They crowded around his kitchen table, the plate of bread and cheese nearby, their heads often near each other as they leaned over the work and laughed quietly at Rey’s handwriting. It felt normal, and Poe luxuriated in it, in the feeling he got when Rey Kenobi threw a pencil at him for pretending not to know how to spell _differentiate,_ or when she patted his arm excitedly for figuring out a logic puzzle that had her stumped. Once, he looked up from the pile of math she’d brought him to see his dad watching from the doorway, a smile so twisted with hope and concern that Poe wasn’t sure if it was a smile anymore.

Poe left five days after that.

And when he came back, he stopped answering the door.

***

Everyone in District Four knew that Rey Kenobi could swim longer and faster than anyone else.

She was born for the water, they said. Such an odd little creature that the sea gave them without a thought to how a nymph could live on land. She showed up to school with her hair wet most mornings, her eyes often drifting, unfocused and wistful, to the seaward windows of her classroom.

Sometimes, boys from their grade would come and watch her swim, but the water was too cold for them to try to follow her through the waves. As if they could catch her.

Even though he’d stopped answering his door, Poe knew that Rey still swam every morning, from the southern tip to the northern tip of the cove. He saw her flashing in and out of the water from his boat, which he’d taken to sailing on every sunrise the summer he was sixteen. She was a creature of habit, and what a strange and beautiful habit it was, to give herself to the sea each morning.

Poe knew better than most people that the sea sometimes didn’t give a person back.

He’d sit and face the swells breaking in the distance, wearing a sweater his grandmother had made for his father, the sleeves rolled down over his hands, salt drying in his curls, and he would not watch Rey swim.

Sometimes his eyes would drift to her, wistful and focused, as she swam across the cove, her grace making the movement look effortless, as if the ocean didn’t tear at her with every stroke. But he didn’t _watch_ her. Watching her felt…

Rey wasn’t meant to be watched. Poe knew that. He knew what watching a person without permission could do.

***

There was a knock at the side of his boat.

Poe set his feet down on the deck and looked towards the source of the sound. It was probably flotsam, ramming up against the side of the small vessel, uncontrolled and bidden to the forces of the tides.

He tried not to see the metaphor there.

The knock came again, though, a quick pattern this time, and Poe stood and crossed the deck in three strides.

Rey Kenobi peered up at him from the water, her hand curled around a rope that hung off the side of the ship.

“ _Funny seeing you here,_ ” Poe would have said a year ago. But it was June, and the Reaping was in three weeks, and Rey Kenobi’s name was in the pool three times this year. There wasn’t anything funny about that. _What if she’d taken tesserae?_ He banished the thought, unwilling to accept that Rey would take them.

_But Obi-Wan had been sick this winter..._

Without a word, afraid of what he might say, Poe lowered the ladder to her, and Rey emerged from the sea, water cascading from her arms and torso as she rose; Poe’s mouth, conversely, felt very dry.

He turned and crossed the deck again while Rey sat on the starboard side of the ship.

“How’d you know this was my boat?” Poe asked quietly, the words almost stolen by the wind picking up as the sun rose higher.

“Who said I knew?” Rey grinned quickly when he shot her a look. “Fine. You’re out here every morning, Dameron. It wasn’t hard to figure out who was sitting out on the cove when everyone else with a boat was fishing.”

Poe nodded, wincing slightly. “Makes sense.”

“They’re telling us the most ludicrous stories in school right now,” Rey continued, tilting her face back. “Silly stories about how the Great Nation of Panem became _great_.”

Poe didn’t comment. His mouth wouldn’t work. Instead, he turned to the main sail and began to fiddle with its rope.

“Your stories were always better,” Rey said idly.

“My stories?” Poe tilted his head towards her, his hands going to untie the knot, an unsatisfactory one that he’d formed in the dark this morning when his hands still shook from a nightmare.

“Yes.” Rey leaned over the side of the boat to trail her hands in the water, and Poe fought the urge to hold her back, to keep her from falling. “The ones about the heroes and the gods who liked to interfere with their lives?”

His mother had taught him the stories when he was a boy, and when he’d gone to school, Poe usually kept his circle of friends entertained during breaks with them. He hadn’t thought of those stories in almost a year.

“I didn’t know you heard those,” Poe muttered, his face feeling foolishly warm. “Didn’t think you were listening.”

“I always listened to you.” The sentence is short but seems to stretch on interminably between them, and Poe’s fingers slipped on the knot. “I knew a few of them myself, from Obi, but I always liked hearing you tell them, too.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t acknowledge his thanks, but she also didn’t acknowledge that it took him almost ten seconds to collect himself.

It had been so long since Poe had been complimented on anything but his smile, or his hair, or the shape of his body. His hands shook again, but the waves rocking underneath him reminded him of where he was, who he was. He resumed working on the rope.

“Do you know the story about the sailor who tried to return to his wife?” Rey asked after he’d started to move again, combing her long, wet hair back from her face. Poe paused again, this time to look at her, and as always, her eyes froze him where he stood. “He was trapped at sea for years, and all he wanted to do was come home?”

“Odiseo,” Poe murmured, blinking the salt spray out of his eyes. He rubbed his jaw and waited for Rey to confirm. When she didn’t, he said it in Panemi. “Odysseus?”

“That’s the one.” Rey wiggled her toes against the wood of the deck and smiled quietly at him, her dimples showing for a brief moment. Entranced, Poe waited for her to speak again, the rope now limp in his hands. “So, you know it?”

“I do.” Poe snorted and returned to his knots.

“...Could you tell it to me?”

He paused again to frown at her. “Sounds to me like you already know it, Kenobi.”

“Maybe I do, Dameron.” Rey rolled her eyes mightily, looking for once every inch her fourteen years. Poe grinned despite the weight that still hung in his chest. “But I want to hear you tell it.”

When he didn’t immediately answer, too busy finishing up with the sail, Rey thumped down against the deck and started to braid her hair. “I swam all the way out here,” she pointed out, and Poe grunted in acknowledgment. “And it wasn’t because I already knew a story.” He couldn’t ignore her now, and her eyes looked as old as he felt when he glanced over. “Please?”

He licked the salt from his lip and knelt on the deck, rubbing his palms against his threadbare pants. “There was a man, Odysseus, who was the king of a land called Ithaca. He had a beautiful wife, Penelope, who he loved very much. She gave him a son, and they were, for a time, happy.” His eyes closed for a moment, and when he next spoke, it was as though his mother’s voice echoed in his ears, line by line, as he recited the story of the War caused by goddesses, of the journey home -

Inexplicably, his voice caught when:

“And he met many people on his journey who did not want him to return home. Circe, an enchantress who wanted him for herself; and Calypso, a lonely, beautiful girl who was just lonely enough to try to take his last chance at happiness. And all Odysseus wanted was to return home to his wife.”

“And did he?” Rey prompted from her corner of the boat, where she’d been huddled, listening, this entire time. The spell around them trembled slightly, and Poe didn’t take his eyes off of her when he answered.

“He did. He sailed for years and years - but, Odysseus was finally allowed to come home to his wife.” _And he slaughtered a dozen men when he found her. But that’s not for this story,_ he wanted to add.

Rey smiled at him though and tilted her head back against the side of the boat. “Call me naive,” she whispered. “But I like a happy ending.”

 _What are those like?_ the dark monster that now lived inside him wanted to snarl.

But the sunlight caught so prettily on Rey’s drying hair, her smile affixed so pleasantly to her freckled face, that all Poe could do was nod, his mouth dry, and stand to walk over to her.

“I know,” he murmured, standing over her. Rey opened her eyes to squint at him, but all he did was offer her his hat before he returned to the prow of the ship. “Coming with me?” He asked, praying she didn’t care that his voice cracked on the question. “Headed into deeper water.”

“I’ll stay,” Rey said, and Poe pretended it didn’t feel so much like a promise - a promise that could break him - as he set sail towards the fishing grounds.

***

In the 47th annual Hunger Games, the first tribute to die was Tallie Lintra, a beautiful girl, fifteen years old, and beach-blonde, and terrified, from District Four.

_She’s not as beautiful as Poe Dameron, poor thing._

At least, that was what he heard the announcer say, as Poe wiped smeared lipstick from his mouth, his eyes fixed on the screen that played the Games for twenty four hours a day, while he waited for his next client to retrieve him.

***

“Was she your friend?” Poe asked in a ghost of a voice when Rey sat down next to him on the dock, a week after the Games ended, and a handsome young man from District Eleven, Finn Storm, won.

“You’re my friend,” Rey answered, which was just as good as a confirmation. Poe closed his eyes, tears sliding down his cheeks, and flinched tellingly when Rey’s thin hands wiped the liquid away.

***

“...And when he’d realized what his wife had done, Jason wandered the earth, lonely and cursed, until the rotting prow of his ship fell on him as he slept, crushing him.”

The silence stretched thin between them, and Poe waited for her to say something, eyeing her nervously. She stared at him for a long second, and then rolled her eyes.

“Do any of these have happy endings?” Rey asked incredulously. She crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow at him imperiously - a regal princess, at the age of fifteen - when he grinned and ducked his head.

“Not many of them, no,” Poe admitted with a laugh. “There’s one, though, about Perseus, and the woman he loved-”

“-I like the sound of that-”

“Not today, though.” Poe shook his head and grinned at her. “You need to get to school.” He tilted his head towards the shore, where District Four and the rest of the world waited to take Rey Kenobi away from him, and away from the sea.

“Ugh.” Rey flounced to the stern and glowered at him, the rising sun glinting off the water and casting a holy glow against her. “Tomorrow. You. Me. Perseus.”

“You got it, Sunshine.”  The word slipped out before he could catch it, and he swore he saw her blush before she dove into the water.

***

The summons came from the Capitol unexpectedly - _Nerissa Crawford misses you, Mr. Dameron, if you would be so kind to -_

He was on a train by five, the April sun setting behind him as he wove through the countryside.

Poe wondered if Rey would forgive him, if she’d even look for his ship in the morning.

***

When he returned, three weeks later, he dragged himself home to shower and stood in the water until it ran colder than he did.

***

His father had given him a ring on his seventeenth birthday, the one Poe had rejected when he was fifteen, when he’d shaken his head because what if he died in the arena, and his father never saw his mother’s ring again?

Poe wore it on a chain around his neck now.

But, Nerissa Crawford had seen it, and wanted to touch it, and Poe had to think of every creative, horrible thing he could to distract her so she never did.

His father found him scrubbing it desperately with a scratchy brillo pad at two a.m., the morning he got back, his eyes wild as he stood at their kitchen sink, his hands raw, almost bleeding from the hot water and the pad in his hands.

“Mijo, stop. _Mijo_.” Kes pulled him away from the sink and took the ring out of his hands, and Poe began to sob.

“ _Papa_.” Poe shook violently as Kes wrapped his arms around him, and he couldn’t respond when his father asked him what had happened.

“What did they do to you?” Kes sounded hard and angry in his ear, and Poe flinched from it. Kes noticed, and his next breath caught in his throat. “No. No, _cariño_ , no, no -”

“I’m sorry.” Poe sobbed into his father’s shoulder. “I’m _sorry_.”

They collapsed to the floor, Kes stroking his hair at times, but crying now, too. Poe dozed off tangled in his father’s arms, his body still shaking from sobs here and there.

When they stood, a few hours before dawn, Kes offered to make him breakfast, and Poe accepted with a shrug. He picked at his eggs and potatoes while Kes hummed softly at the stove.

“Are you taking the boat out today?” Kes asked carefully. Poe thought about it, thought about hazel eyes and freckles and a girl who blushed when you called her _sunshine,_ and he traced his finger around the ring.

“Not today, papa,” Poe whispered, his voice hoarse, hoping his father wouldn’t call him on it.

“...She came by, you know.” Kes didn’t turn from the stove, his voice not moving away from nonchalance. “After you…”

Poe grunted rather than respond, stabbing a piece of potato with disinterest.

“Said you owed her a story.” Kes shrugged and walked to the table holding two cups of caf. “I wouldn’t break a promise to that one.”

“I shouldn’t _make_ promises to that one,” Poe corrected darkly, staring at his caf and not at his father. A second later, a hand covered his own, but Poe refused to cry.

He’d accepted that truth a long time ago.

***

A gentle prodding from his father encouraged Poe to leave his house later that day, a Sunday.

He walked along the shoreline for a while, and then, when he should have turned around and headed back to Victor’s Village, he turned down a shell-lined path, sea grass waving in the breeze as he made his way towards the shanty that sat at the edge of the forested hills. The sky was a mocking, beautiful shade of blue, the first hint of summer beginning to push the spring away.

He heard her before he saw her.

Rey Kenobi was laughing, actually laughing, and his feet moved faster before his brain had even decided what to do; she was laughing, which meant Obi was healthy, which meant she might not be so furious with him for vanishing for weeks when he owed her a story -

Poe tripped over his feet as he rounded the corner.

Rey was sitting in the sunlight, wearing a soft tan dress that had doubtlessly been white at one point. Her feet were bare, her shoulders too, and her long, brown hair tumbled down her back. She was perched on a bench, looking like a goddess from one of his stories, and at her side was Tommy Calhan.

Tommy was seventeen, and strong, and handsome. His dark brown hair framed his face - his nose had been broken and set badly, his teeth were slightly crooked, but he had an easy dimple that appeared whenever he was smiling, and he was smiling right now. His golden complexion made him look like one of the heroes in Poe’s stories. And, as he spoke, Rey laughed again, her hand going to her side as her lovely eyes squeezed shut in mirth.

Poe realized something about Tommy Calhan, who grinned proudly for having made the prettiest girl in District Four laugh.

Tommy looked like Poe, if he'd never broken along every invisible seam.

His stomach was on fire, and so were the plains of sea grass behind him - and Poe turned and left without saying a word.

***

Rey found him at his boat the next morning, and when she wheedled slightly for a story, Poe told her the one of Apollo and Hyacinth, pretended that he didn’t see the flash of disappointment in her eyes when she said, “That’s not a happy ending, Dameron.”

“It’s not,” he confirmed, dragging rope through his hands. “Isn’t it a school day, Kenobi?”

***

Because Poe Dameron had come to accept that he was meant to be in pain, he wandered to the lane he used to walk to get to school; down the lane, he could see Tommy Calhan carrying Rey Kenobi’s books. She looked mostly amused by his efforts, and Poe felt something akin to jealousy, but not quite, at how they looked together.

He felt awful, horrible, for looking. But he needed to see that she was happy. He just needed to-

Tommy Calhan stopped walking, and so did Rey. He said something to her, and she looked up at him. The world moved in slow motion as Tommy placed his hand on Rey’s cheek and leaned down, down, just enough to shatter what was left of Poe Dameron, and-

Rey turned her head, and Tommy kissed freckled skin instead. She looked sad, and embarrassed, and then her eyes lifted and widened when she saw Poe watching. He turned and walked as quickly as he could without being accused of fleeing.

***

“So?” Rey sat on the deck of the boat and eyed him. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“It’s not my place,” Poe said firmly, wishing for a length of rope in his hands to distract himself. But Rey wouldn’t let him look away from her. “I didn’t mean to...I just came by to see … everyone. I didn’t-”

“Bullshit.” Rey glowered at him, hands on her hips, a warrior’s stance. “You don’t give a fuck about _everyone_.”

He looked at her pleadingly - _don’t make me say it_ \- until she relented, her shoulders relaxing.

Then, because he was an idiot: “Why didn’t you?”

Poe cursed his damn curiosity, opening doors that should remain shut. Rey didn’t answer right away, and he waited for the telltale splash of her diving off the boat.

“...The Reaping is in six weeks.”

“Oh.” He wilted and nodded. “Yeah. I … I understand. I never wanted to kiss anyone either, before the Games. Seemed. Selfish.”

_Also, I didn’t think you knew I existed._

“No, it’s not -” Rey made a small noise in her throat, and bit her lip. “Tommy’s...volunteering.”

“He’s strong,” Poe allowed. “He’ll be … he’ll be okay.” _Please don’t make me promise to bring him home,_ he wanted to say. _I’m not strong enough for that. I’d try, for you. But I can’t make promises._

“That’s not it.” Rey laughed bitterly, and Poe frowned at her in confusion. The boat rocked agonizingly underneath them, stirred by a sudden swell. “I can’t imagine myself wanting to kiss anyone who’d volunteer for _that_.”

Poe didn’t answer her; he didn’t know what to say.

“I saw what it did to…” Rey shook her head, and Poe was seized by a wave of self-loathing, of a hatred so pure and consuming that he didn’t think there was room left for him to breathe.

“I came home,” Poe said defensively, his hands curling into fists at his side. “I came back.”

“You did.” Rey leveled him with one of her far away looks, and Poe wondered if it had been a question, wondered at the inflection of those two short words. He wondered at the fact he hadn’t said _I won._ “But you still go.”

“I have to.” The air between them tensed while Poe’s jaw locked stubbornly.

“I wish you didn’t have to,” Rey said in a voice so soft, Poe thought it would scar him permanently.

“I know.” Poe sat down next to her, and Rey rested her head against the hull of the ship. They stared at each other for a few quiet moments. “So, Perseus.”

Her lips twitched into a smile. Poe counted it as one of his best victories of the last three years.

“Perseus.”

“Perseus was a demigod. His grandfather cast him out for fear of a prophecy, that he would kill him, so he was a man without a home for a long time. However, he slew many fearsome beasts, including Medusa, who was a Gorgon who could turn men to stone just by looking at them.”

“Count me jealous,” Rey interjected, and Poe smiled at her, even if it still hurt at the edges.

“Well, when he was flying home with the Gorgon’s head, intending to use it to free his mother from a wicked man who wanted to marry her and control her, he heard a young woman crying.”

“Andromeda?”

“Yes.” Poe nodded and closed his eyes, the world fading to red behind his eyelids as the sun shone down on him. “Her mother had foolishly declared that she was prettier than all the Nereids, sea nymphs, legendary for their beauty. It was particularly foolish because one of the Nereids, Amphirite, was Poseidon’s wife. And Poseidon had a terrible temper.”  Poe felt Rey lean into his side, making him smile even as his gut clenched in anxiety. “So, he unleashed a creature, a terrifying creature named Cetus, upon Andromeda’s city, and declared that he would only be satisfied by Andromeda’s death.

“Her father, fearing the death toll, chained Andromeda to a cliff and left her there to die.”

“He did _what_ ?” Rey spoke up indignantly, her fury feeling more like warmth in the drowsy morning light. “Why - she must have fought back. That’s why they chained her. She must have said _sorry, I didn’t make this mess,_ and they had to chain her up.”

“Some people just like chains,” Poe muttered darkly, and Rey stiffened next to him. “Even if they know you can’t run away. Some people want to put you in chains anyway.”

“...Poe?”

“So, Perseus flew overhead using the winged sandals Hermes had given him,” Poe continued, refusing to open his eyes. “And saw Andromeda weeping, chained to the rock. Having been gifted with a helm of invisibility as well, Perseus attacked the monster and slayed it, freeing Andromeda. He’d fallen in love with her at first sight, you see” - Rey made a noise of disbelief, as if that exact phenomenon hadn’t happened in District Four, eight years ago, when Poe Dameron saw Rey Kenobi run faster than anyone he’d ever met - “So he carried her away from her horrible parents, and they married. He used the Gorgon’s head to free his mother, and became a popular and well-liked king, who had children and grandchildren. Eventually, he died of old age, and he and his beloved wife were set among the stars to celebrate their story.”

“A happy ending?”

Poe nodded, finally lowering his chin and opening his eyes to smile at Rey. “The happiest.”

***

Tommy Calhan volunteered as tribute, saving a scrawny twelve year old boy who’d been shaking too hard to stand when his name had been called.

Poe allowed himself to look out in the audience, where the fifteen year old girls were grouped.

Rey Kenobi did not cry for Tommy Calhan. She did not look at Tommy Calhan.

But, later, when he stole away from the platform to find her in the crowd before going to accompany Tommy and Calliope to the train station, Poe Dameron pressed a small wooden box in Rey’s hand.

“Don’t open that,” he whispered. “Just...keep it safe for me? Until I get back?”

“What happens if I open it?” Rey asked as the crowd dispersed around them, some citizens giving them odd looks, the strange, lovely granddaughter of Old Ben and the shameful Victor of District Four.

Poe shrugged and smiled at her, and Rey pocketed the box carefully. “Is it like Pandora?” She guessed.

“In a way.” Poe fought the urge to grab her hand, to press his lips against her knuckles, scarred from digging for scrap in the shipyard. “Keep it safe?”

“Of course.” Rey surprised him by darting forward and throwing her arms around him. “You keep safe, too, Dameron.”

“I -” He was stopped from making a promise he couldn’t keep by a Peacekeeper’s approach. Poe gently disentangled himself from Rey’s arms - her confused expression cleared when she saw the helmeted man, all in white, nearing them.

“You are to come with me and report to the station.” The Peacekeeper ordered, his grip deathly strong on Poe’s arm.

“I need to say goodbye to my dad,” Poe said stubbornly. He yelped as he was dragged almost off his feet by the Peacekeeper. “Hey!”

“Let him go!” Rey darted forward and tried to push the Peacekeeper, and Poe reached out to stop her.

“Rey, no!”

Another Peacekeeper approached, their electrified whip humming to life. “She didn’t mean it,” Poe said desperately. “I’m - I’m coming. Unless you want to explain to the president why the Victor from District Four needs Rebuilding?” He added the question in a haughty voice, his chin lifted high, his vowels lapsing into the Capitol accent he was _supposed_ to be practicing, for clients who found his natural accent off-putting.

“What?” Rey’s voice trembled while he was marched away. “What does that - Poe? Poe!”

“I’ll see you when I get back, Sunshine,” Poe called back to her. “I -” _No promises._

He could feel Rey’s eyes on him while he tried to walk to the station with as much dignity as he could summon, marched between two Peacekeepers who loomed over him, their helmets hiding their faces from the harsh July sun.

***

Poe decided within minutes that he didn’t like Tommy Calhan.

Which made the task of bringing him home that much more unpleasant.

Two days into training, Poe reached out to correct his stance as he held onto a spear, and Tommy shoved him away.

“You can stop pretending,” Tommy snarled. Poe eyed him, perplexed, until Tommy dropped the spear and dragged a hand through his hair. “You don’t have to pretend that you want me to make it through.”

“What?” Poe was taken aback by the accusation.

“Spare me.” Tommy rolled his eyes and chucked the spear to the side. “As if you aren’t hoping I’ll die in there, so you can have her all to yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“Piss off, Dameron. Everyone sees how you look at her. How you’ve always looked at her.” Tommy scowled at him. “And everyone sees how you run off to the _Capitol_ every chance you get, every time they snap their fingers. You only ever leave her behind. You can’t have Rey and every person in the goddamn Capitol, too.”

Poe took a second to collect himself, searching into the darker corners of himself to see if there was any truth to Tommy’s initial accusation, and then he shrugged. “Suit yourself, dumbass. If you don’t want a Victor to help you, fine. But if you win this like I want you to - and I actually want you to - you’ll discover very quickly that Victors have absolutely _nothing_ to themselves.”

Calliope called out to him then, nervous and unsure from where she tried to tie a knot in the corner of their training room, and Poe shoved past Tommy to go help her.

***

Calliope died ten minutes into the 48th annual Hunger Games. Tommy had the decency to cry, to carry her small body an extra two dozen yards, before the cannon fired, and he had to set her down.

He wiped his eyes, grabbed a spear from the ground, and killed three people.

Poe watched the start of the Games through a drug-addled haze - Syrus Quartzfell always liked Poe a little high - recalling a conversation he’d had with Phineas, Thelonious, and Tommy, at a party after training had ended ( _“What is_ in _the water in District Four?”_ one had asked admiringly, taking in the two, barely dressed seventeen-year-olds. “ _Salt,_ ” Poe snapped, but the two men had only laughed. When they walked away, Tommy had looked over at Poe in terror, and in that moment, Poe knew Tommy had finally pieced it together. _“Still want to win?_ ” He asked tiredly. Tommy had no answer).

“He’s cute,” Syrus commented as he got dressed. He combed his fingers through Poe’s mussed curls, and Poe shrugged in response.

“Not as cute as you, honey,” he cooed, knowing what to say to make Syrus melt.

It could be worse than Syrus Quartzfell - Poe must have made Snoke happy recently because Syrus, for all his glitz and glamor and neediness, was not violent or cruel. Lonely, yes. Repulsive? Slightly. But terrifying? No.

Poe knew he wouldn’t ever need to be Remade after an appointment with Syrus.

And, Syrus got high with him, which meant:

“Tell me a story.” Poe flounced backwards on the bed and pouted at Syrus, who paused in buttoning his shirt to smile at him.

“A story?” Syrus looked oddly pleased to have Poe’s attention. “Do we have time for-”

“Forget about the time,” Poe encouraged, holding his hand out to his client, who’d only paid for an hour, after all. “I wanna hear you talk. Please?”

Syrus sat down on the bed, and let Poe hold him while he spilled a particularly interesting story about Orson Krennic.

***

Syrus Quartzfell paid steeply, in credits and secrets - and, when Poe stumbled to the monitor room, he saw that Tommy was eating heartily from a basket full of seaweed loaves and rolled cheese.

A good night, then.

***

“Perseus and Andromeda had seven sons, and one daughter,” Poe said quietly to the medical officer who stood next to him as they collected Tommy’s remains.

He’d been plucked from the Arena - a mountain range, this time - sixteen days in, the second runner-up of the 48th annual Hunger Games.

“Who?” The medical officer asked in unfeigned interest, no doubt thinking of gossip holoreels and a good story to tell their friends.

“Nothing,” Poe whispered. He leaned over to close Tommy’s sea-green eyes. “They’re nobody.”

***

His father was waiting for him at the station, as always, when Poe disembarked, weighed down by the presence of two pinewood boxes on the train behind him.

***

Poe sat at the dock until the sunset, the water cold on his feet.

He tried to feel nothing at all, but what he felt was a secret sort of disappointment, one made more bitter by how easily he accepted it.

Then, soft enough that he thought he could be imagining it, that it could just be the sound of waves lapping against the wood planks, footsteps approached.

Rey sat down next to him, unfolding her long legs. Poe tried not to stare at the freckles painted on her smooth skin. She’d turned sixteen when he was away.

“You came back,” Rey whispered, leaning into his side. Poe nodded, unsure of what to say, unsure of how to feel. “...Thank you.”

“For what?” Poe asked, incredulity creeping into his tone. _Your boyfriend’s dead,_ he wanted to snap. But Rey’s fingers curled around his hand and pulled it into her lap.

“For coming home.”

She didn’t try to comfort him when he cried. He’d always liked that about Rey Kenobi.

***

In the middle of the night in October, Poe sat bolt right upright in bed, almost screaming in terror.

He had been back in the Arena, but this time, Rey was with him.

His hand shook as he wiped his mouth, fighting the urge to jump out of bed and run to the bathroom to get sick.

Rey Kenobi’s name would appear in the Reaping five times that summer. If she could get through that year, it would be only one more year before she’d be free. She’d been lucky so far.

Poe laid back down, beating his pillow into a usable shape while he shivered and tried to get comfortable again.

He tried not to doubt how lucky Rey Kenobi could really be, when he’d learned - over and over again, the lesson painfully reinforced at every turn, at every opportunity - that being loved by Poe Dameron was as good as a death sentence.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..................
> 
>  
> 
> Next Chapter: 49th Annual Hunger Games - Poe has to mentor the girl he loves while he watches the Capitol go wild for her love story with the tribute from District One.


	3. The Reaping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The months leading up to the 49th Annual Hunger Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ducks because the chapter count went up again*  
> Ages in this chapter: Rey is 16, Poe is 18
> 
> WARNING: Cruel speculation from townspeople over Rey/Poe's relationship
> 
> WARNING: Implied that Poe tries to rig the Games/Reaping using sex
> 
> WARNING: angst and gratuitous references to greek mythology

_“Do you think he at least pays her?”_

Poe overheard the whispers as he walked through the Market one day around noon, intending on bringing home some fish for his father’s birthday. It was March, it was cold, and Poe had just returned from the Capitol the previous day.

He and Rey spent the entire morning on the boat; and, for the first time since they started their morning routine, Rey Kenobi was late to school.

They’d gotten distracted, spending a full hour discussing the story of Hades, and his beautiful wife who he’d stolen from the earth. But, Rey pointed out, as keen as ever, she’d chosen to stay with him.

“Why do you think she had a choice?” Poe frowned at her, his fingers tracing a pattern in the film of salt spray that had caught on the railing.

“Goddesses don’t need to eat,” Rey pointed out, almost smug. “Why did she eat the fruit, if she didn’t _want_ to stay?”

“He stole her.” Poe frowned; when Rey reached over to smooth out the line between his brow, he didn’t pull away, surprising them both. Rey left her fingers there, smoothing out the lines in his forehead. “He … she should have been left alone. He couldn’t leave her alone.”

“He loved her.” Rey’s hand shifted so she could pull her fingers through his tangled curls. “It’s not always a bad thing, to be loved by a god.”

“How?” Poe spluttered, but closed his eyes as her blunt nails scratched against his scalp, right behind his ears. Rey laughed, a soft, musical sound reminiscent of the chimes his father hung up on their porch. “Leda? Leto? Europa? _Semele_?”

“Ariadne,” Rey’s hand smoothed down his neck. “She would have died without Dionysus.”

“I regret telling you that story,” Poe mumbled, hating himself for not pulling away as Rey’s fingers slipped along his shoulder. He reached out blindly and found her calf, curled up against his; he squeezed once, gently, admiring the silk of her hair against his palm.

Women, and most of the men, in the Capitol waxed their body hair entirely off - but no. No, he shouldn’t think of them here, not here, not on his boat with Rey so close and real and warm under his palm.

“I’m glad you did.” Rey was smiling. He knew without looking. “She escaped the labyrinth, just as much as Theseus did. And how does he repay her? Dumped her on some foreign island to die. How lucky that the most handsome of the gods was there to save her and love her.”

“Lucky?” Poe cracked an eye open at that. _How do you know he didn’t_ plan _on it?_ “You think she was lucky?” _And since when was Dionysus the most handsome of the gods?_

“I do.” Rey grinned at him, obviously pleased to have made him open his eyes. Their hands tangled together as they sat cross-legged on the deck, their knees pressed together as they rocked gently back and forth from the waves. “I think she and Persephone were the happiest of the gods’ wives. They probably had a club.”

“A club?” He couldn’t keep the laughter from his voice. Funny, how he’d arrived last night to the station, thinking he’d never laugh again. Rey Kenobi always proved him wrong.

“Yes, a club.” Rey straightened her shoulders regally and lapsed into an accent not unlike her grandfather’s - if Poe weren’t so familiar by now, he’d say it was close to the Capitol accent. But it wasn’t. It was warmer, grander, realer. “A club for women whose husbands adore them and refuse to cheat on them!”

“Who said Hades didn’t take other wives?”

“Did he?” Rey smirked at him, and Poe shrugged, having been caught.

“Persephone was the only thing he ever loved,” Poe admitted, squeezing Rey’s hand. “...Although Dionysus was known to participate in some…”

“Some _what_?”

He looked at Rey, long-legged and freckled and innocent, with her hands that were soft but also hard from work, and her hazel eyes that looked almost green when she was out on the water.  

“You know, some…” Poe gestured vaguely with his hand. “Um. Group activities.”

“Orgies?”

Poe spluttered, his face aflame. “How do you know what those are?” His voice pitched upwards frantically, cracking on the last word as Rey giggled.

“I know things,” she said proudly, her own cheeks a little pink. “And I say, good for him! As long as Ariadne was okay with it.”

“I mean, she might have been.” Poe scowled over the edge of the boat. “All the stories say she was happy.”

“Maybe she joined him,” Rey said, serene now, her head tilting so it could rest on the inside hull of the ship. Poe made a strange noise in his throat - _why would she want to join him_? - but Rey’s hands stroked the inside of his wrists, and he fought the urge to relax. “...Maybe she didn’t. But, she probably forgave him.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Ariadne was a person, Poe. She’d seen terrible things. But if Dionysus loved her - Ariadne would know. Sex doesn’t mean love.”

“No, it really doesn’t.” They were silent for a spell, and Poe eventually found the strength to look back at Rey, whose eyes still gazed at him as though she could see every horrible thing he’d ever done. For a wild second, he let himself believe that maybe she _could,_ and she didn’t care.

But no. The boy who could have made Rey happy had died in the arena.

_Did he mean Tommy, or himself?_

“So, Persephone.” Rey broke his train of thought, and Poe smiled at her tiredly. “She got to spend the rest of her life with the man she’d chosen?” Poe thought he was imagining the way she leaned into the last word.

“Not exactly.” Poe studied the wood under them, unwilling to lift his eyes. “Every spring, she had to return to the earth. Her mother refused to let her daughter, the goddess of springtime, live in the Underworld for the full year. So, she demanded that Persephone return for almost half the year, and when she was down below, all the living things on the earth, the trees and the flowers, withered and died.”

“And what did Hades do?”

“What do you mean?” Poe blinked and looked up, squinting in the light. “When she was above?” Rey nodded. “I...I don’t know. The stories never said.”

“I know what he did,” Rey declared grandly.

“You do?”

“Mhm.” Rey smiled widely, her dimples deepening in her freckled cheeks. “He waited for her to come back to him.”

“That sounds a little lonely,” Poe hedged, feeling a pit form in his stomach.

“So? People don’t mind waiting for the one they love.” Rey wasn’t smiling anymore; instead, her chin was lifted almost challengingly, her eyes flashing in the sun. Poe looked up, frowning, as the angle of the light was wrong, and then he cursed vividly.

“You’re late for school, Sunshine.”

“Oh, shit!” Rey jumped to her feet, laughing. “I’ve never been late for school - you’re a bad influence, Dameron.”

He didn’t laugh, just sat there feeling foolishly upset, a lump in his throat.

“Hey, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine.” Poe stood as well, his muscles a little tense from sitting in one way for so long. “Let me take you in, I don’t think you have time to swim.” In the last two years, she’d always swam to shore herself after their conversations, and Poe had thought to himself that the space, the distance she put between them was an important part of their interactions. Rey should leave Poe behind, after all; he was just waiting for the day she stopped showing up at his boat.

Rey agreed, still looking apologetic, but Poe forced himself to smile - something he was good at, these days - and turned the boat around. He tried not to stare at Rey in the prow of the ship as he worked the sails. He failed.

When they reached the dock, the schoolyard visible half a mile ahead on a hill, Rey jumped out, laughing anxiously. “I guess I’m going to school like this today.” She gestured at the swimsuit she wore each morning, and Poe snorted, refusing to let his eyes linger on her body for more than a second or two.  

So, he’d offered her his shirt and a spare pair of trousers he’d had lying around (and they’d _laughed_ when he had to twine a small piece of rope around her slender hips to keep them up), and waved as she turned and jogged towards the school.

Poe walked through the Market at noon - and that was when he heard the whispers. He’d known, after Tommy’s outburst last year, that people had started to notice how he felt about Rey, but this was different. This was right in front of him, burning him alive, as he shuffled between stalls.

“Do you think he at least...pays her?” Sally Elkins whispered to the apothecary, and Poe froze, turning to stare at her. She didn’t look the least bit embarrassed; if anything, she looked disapproving. Poe shook his head, told himself that it could have been anyone they were talking about, and kept going.

Then, he passed by Olive Molsk’s mother, a formidable woman who sold pottery made from the dark clay at the bottom of the cove.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she snapped without warning, and Poe looked up from his boots.

“...Pardon?”

Mrs. Molsk glared at him, her face cracked and lined from the sea and sun. “You should be _ashamed_ of yourself,” she repeated, hands on her hips. She jabbed a rod at him, and Poe leapt back even though there was too much distance between them for it to be a real threat. “Carrying on with that sweet girl. Does she know about your lovers in the Capitol?”

He felt as though he’d been stabbed. He hated that he knew that feeling so intimately. The air punched out of his lungs, and Poe felt the world go gray at the edges.

_Breathe. Just breathe._

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Poe croaked, but Mrs. Molsk shook her head.

“You need to leave,” she snapped. “We don’t want your money, and we don’t want a Capitol whore chasing after nice girls.” She slammed the front of her stall down, and Poe jumped slightly before walking quickly, picking up pace until he was almost sprinting, towards Victor’s Village.

***

He made a horrible mistake - one in a series of many, it would seem - when he went to the lane to watch school let out that afternoon.

Poe saw the oldest students, the sixteen and seventeen year olds, trail out behind the youngest, and he squinted but didn’t see her at first.

Finally, he felt himself relax when Rey walked out, without her knapsack (he’d made her late, after all, which meant she probably hadn’t eaten lunch today). She was studying a book and frowning, her steps slower than usual before she snapped the book shut and tucked it under her arm.

The other children lined up in the yard to play - Poe wondered at how small they looked, the twelve, thirteen, fourteen year olds, who crowded into each other and set themselves up to race and wrestle. Even the oldest students who lounged against the fence, laughing and talking while watching the younger kids, looked impossibly young and carefree.

Rey walked down the path, and Poe wondered if she still raced the other children, if she were still the fastest. But, she passed by the races, some of the younger children rushing over to tug on her loose, borrowed pants, and Rey only smiled and shook her head before walking again.

He smiled and prepared to wait for her, to walk her home, when it happened.

Tommy Calhan’s cousin, Walsh, sixteen years old and just similar enough to Tommy to hurt, stepped to the side as Rey walked past, and their shoulders slammed together.

From this distance, Poe could see the way Rey’s hands tightened into fists, could see her chin lift as she studied Walsh, could see her shake her head. But he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

He felt the urge to run to her, to block Walsh from touching her ever again, until he remembered the words in the marketplace, the words that had driven him here today, just to see her, to make sure she was -

Rey Kenobi was not okay.

He realized that now when she moved to pass Walsh and his friends, and the boy reached out and grabbed her arm, saying something that had her flushing and stiffening.

This was his fault.

Olive and Penny, two girls who’d always been on either side of Rey growing up, laughed at whatever Walsh said, and Rey jerked her arm away, wrapping her arms protectively around herself, the book now squashed to her stomach.

Poe’s temper flared once more when Rey exited the yard, her shoulders set, her spine defiantly straight, and Walsh shouted something after her that Poe could just barely catch on the wind. Olive and Penny erupted into giggles, but Rey didn’t even turn around, just walked at a natural pace up on the path.

She saw him waiting there, and then her shoulders tightened, her expression growing wary.

“What was that?” Poe demanded, in lieu of a greeting. “Rey?”

She kept walking and shook her head. “It was nothing. I - you shouldn’t have -”

“Was that because of this morning?” Poe asked weakly, falling in step next to her. She didn’t shoo him away, or answer him. “Fuck, Rey, we gotta stop, if it means-”

“Don’t you dare.” Rey stopped as they rounded the curve in the path. They were well out of the others’ sight now, so Poe relaxed, if only slightly. “Don’t you _dare_ suggest to me that...that -”

“That being with me is a bad idea?” Poe winced and corrected himself. “Being seen with me is a bad idea.”

“That’s not it.” Rey jabbed her finger at him and then scoffed. “Not everything is about you.”

“I don’t think that!’

“It has _nothing_ to do with you!”

“What’s it to do with, then?” Their voices had both risen to almost a shout at this point, and Rey took a shuddering breath before folding inward, slightly. “I’m - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“We learned about Obi Wan Kenobi in school. In January. After you left.”

“What?” Poe hadn’t been expecting that. He blinked in confusion. “What do you-”

“They didn’t tell you?” He was at a loss for what she could mean, so he said nothing, and Rey covered her eyes with her hands. “Of course they didn’t.” She dropped the hand and stared at him, chin lifted stubbornly. “My grandfather was best friends with Vader.”

Vader, the first and violent leader of Panem. Vader, the one who Poe had learned - through a client who’d had far too much to drink - had choked his wife, the last democratically elected leader of the nation before Panem, while she was pregnant, killing her. Vader, the creator of the Hunger Games.

“He - Old Ben?” Poe coughed. Rey jerked her head to the side, indicating they should begin walking again. So they did.

“He committed some sort of...crime against the state,” Rey continued bitterly. “Obi wouldn’t tell me when I asked. Said it was too dangerous. Said it wasn’t even supposed to be mentioned in the textbook.” Rey offered the book under her arm to Poe. “And it’s not. It’s not in _any_ of the books. Obi Wan’s name never appears. The teacher just...brought it up one day. Looked right at me and said it.”

Poe thought desperately back to January, thought to the clients he’d seen - had he made any of them angry? Had he upset Snoke? Was this his fault, too?

He had a feeling it was. Everything bad that happened to Rey Kenobi seemed to be his fault.

Flipping through the pages, he could only find the typical drivel in the textbooks, none of it stacking up to what Syrus told him, or Phineas and Thelonious, or Weela, or any of them.

“Obi Wan was banished after my mother was born - he and Vader had a massive falling out, but the teacher _said_ that Vader loved him too dearly to see him die. His wife, my grandmother, died two months after they were relocated to District One from the Capitol. After my mother died, in childbirth, Obi Wan was relocated again, here, to District Four.”

“The teacher told you all that?” Poe asked in disbelief.

“No. Just the first part, about his banishment - everything else, Obi told me. Reluctantly. He wouldn’t give me details, just that - he still didn’t know if it was worth it.” A rare tear slipped from Rey’s eye as she shook her head. “I don’t think he meant for me to hear that part. His … his mind isn’t what it used to be.” She wiped the tear away angrily. “He can’t work anymore. Not after - I mean, people have always sort of stayed away from him, from us. But after the teacher told us all that...no one will hire him to work. They say he’s too old, too frail, but...I know why.”

“Rey, I had no idea-”

“I didn’t want you to have any idea.” Rey stopped walking again and covered her mouth with the back of her hand, as though trying to hold something in. They were at the fork in the path, left to Victor’s Village, right to the lonely shanty against the first. “I - we didn’t have any food. And... Obi got sick, again, out of nowhere. This winter was _terrible-_ ”

“I would have helped you,” Poe said desperately, stupidly reaching out, forgetting they weren’t on the privacy of his boat, to catch her hand. “Rey, please, I can help you-”

“It’s too late.” Rey’s face fell, and she let go of his hand. “I had to. I didn’t want to tell you, but I _had_ to-”

“You had to _what_?”

“I took tesserae,” Rey choked out, her eyes red even though no tears were falling, and for the second time that day, Poe felt the world slip out from underneath him. “I - I had to, we were starving, and then I could use the credits we saved to buy Obi medicine, and-”

“You didn’t.” Rey didn’t take the words back, and Poe tore at his hair. “God _damnit_ , Rey, why wouldn’t you let me help you?”

“You weren’t here.” It wasn’t said as an accusation. If anything, it was a confession. Her eyes slipped shut while she shook her head. “You weren’t...Obi got sick a few days after you left. I … I didn’t want to bother your dad, so I figured-”

“No.” Poe pressed his hands to his temple, his mind racing forward - he could - the Games were rigged sometimes, he knew that, he _knew_ that, from a former, sadistic Gamemaker who he _hated_ but still had a loose tongue - he could offer something, anything, _everything_ to the Capitol if they would just - he just needed to -

“It’s only two extra entries,” Rey pointed out softly, defensive still. “It’s - my name is only in there seven times.”

District Four was the third wealthiest district, though, and most children never took out tesserae.

Poe stared at Rey with fear still coiled tight in his gut; she wouldn’t meet his eyes, her arms folded defensively still across her chest as she glared at the ground. As he stared at her, he couldn’t help but notice something he’d refused to think of this morning - Rey had lost weight. Maybe only ten pounds, but she hadn’t had the weight to lose. Hatred, boiling, caustic loathing rose in him, then: at the Capitol, who demanded part of Rey for her to survive, who demanded part of all of them, who demanded their children, their lives, their labor, and for _what_? Rey still starved. With the tesserae promised to her for the increased chance that she’d die in their stupid, fucking games, Rey was still starving, and she was starving worse with the tesserae.

Poe wanted the Capitol to burn.

“I need to go.” Rey turned right and headed down the path, while Poe still stood shocked silent and still. “I - Obi needs to take his medicine, and he can’t always remember if he did, so-”

“I get it.” Poe nodded and licked his lip before turning to stare at her sadly. “I get it, Sunshine.”

She offered him a sad, tired smile before walking away. She didn’t look back.

***

The next morning, he heard the rap at the side of his boat.

When he went to fish Rey out of the sea, her hand tight in his as he pulled her up and out of the water, he couldn’t help but think of Hades:

Hades, the lost, sad god of death, who waited with arms outstretched for his wife to return to him each fall.

Poe pulled Rey onboard, and tried not to think he was pulling her into hell with him.

***

A week later, Poe sent a message to the Capitol - the first he’d ever sent that wasn’t merely a reply.

His offer was accepted, and he traveled to the Capitol the next afternoon, but not before walking to the shanty at the edge of the forest, up above the town, to hand a small box to Rey Kenobi.

“Don’t open that,” he joked, as though he hadn’t said the same thing to her the last four times he’d left the box in her care.

“You don’t need to remind me. Pandora had no self control,” Rey noted, slipping the box into her sweater pocket. Behind her, Poe could hear Obi coughing. “I’m famous for mine.”

Poe smiled, his chest aching enough to rip him in half, and he walked to the train station.

***

That night, around two a.m. Poe dragged himself to the Medical Center to be Rebuilt, and prayed it would be enough.

***

July came around with a ferocious speed, and Poe wondered where the spring had gone. But, he knew where it had gone:

It had passed by with Rey on his boat each morning, looking a little healthier every time he saw her. He’d started stopping by her house while she was at school, to help take care of Old Ben, and he liked to think it helped her. He liked to think that it was enough, this apology for brushing too close to her orbit, for tangling her up in this with him.

It had passed by with Rey taking his hand more often than not each morning. Somehow, she could always tell when he couldn’t stand to be touched, even by a quiet girl with callouses under her fingers, with green enough in her eyes to make Demeter jealous.

It had passed by with her head on his shoulder, her brown hair under his nose as he tried not to breathe too deeply, to get too used to the thought of each morning, for the rest of his mornings spent in District Four, with his boat, and his girl who he never should have thought of as his in the first place.

It had passed by with Kes ruffling his hair each afternoon as they cleaned fish together, with Old Ben recognizing him some days, with Rey laughing in his ear as he showed her how to tie a knot that would last, her back crushed to his chest by an unexpected swell.

It had passed by.

***

On the morning of the Reaping, Rey waited for him at the dock when he walked to his boat. A first.

He stalled in his tracks, his breath in his throat as he stared at her.

She wore the weatherbeaten, tan dress that used to be white, and her hair was braided back from her head carefully, exposing the elegant line of her neck, and the freckles splashed there. Rey was beautiful in her best clothing, and Poe hated it.

She wore her Reaping clothes.

“Good morning,” Poe greeted gruffly, exhausted from the last few days. He’d gone to the Capitol again, this time for a pre-Games party that had gone on for three days. He’d lost track of the number of clients Snoke brought to him. He hadn’t lost track of the secrets.

Wordlessly, Rey offered him the box he’d left in her care on the last day of June.

His throat tightened. Poe took the box and held it in his palm, avoiding Rey’s intense gaze.

“When were you going to tell me?” She demanded.

“You opened it?”

“Yes.”

Poe sighed heavily and crossed the dock to his boat. “Let’s” - he jabbed his thumb west, to the sea. “Out there.”

Rey huffed but climbed aboard, taking his offered hand as she navigated getting on the boat with her long skirt tangled around her legs.

They were quiet on the way, the boat cutting through the strangely still water, strangely silent. Poe kept opening his mouth only to close it, Rey hovering at the side of the ship, her eyes on the water. Her dress twisted around her body in the wind, twining around her slender legs and cutting off at the sharpness of her shoulder blades, and after years of resisting, he watched her.

He wondered, selfishly, if Tommy Calhan had felt her body under his palms before he’d asked to go die in some shitty arena, far away from his mother, and his cousin, his aunts and uncles, and a quiet girl who was the smartest person any of them had ever met. He wondered if Tommy had discovered what it was to feel Rey Kenobi, to taste her, to lay her out on the sand as the waves crashed down behind them, and to show her with trembling hands and an unsure mouth how much he loved her.

He didn’t wonder if Tommy had loved her - because of course he had.

He did, selfishly, wonder if Rey had loved him back.

Poe wondered, and then stopped wondering.

If Tommy had known all those things, what it was to love Rey Kenobi, what it was to press against her in the dark and steal sighs from her soft, pink mouth, he wouldn’t have fucking volunteered in the first place.

When they had sailed to the edge of the cove, Poe tossed the anchor overboard and waited for Rey to speak.

“Why?” Rey didn’t push past that one word.

“You know why.” Poe sat down heavily on the container he kept for larger catches. “I can’t...I don’t want to bring it with me to the Capitol.”

“And why is that?”

Poe clicked the box open and pulled out his mother’s silver ring and the chain it hung on; setting the box aside, he put the necklace back on, the ring heavy against his chest. He didn’t answer her.

“You trust me too much.” Rey buried her face in her hands and shook her head. “That’s - that’s your mother’s _ring,_ Poe, what if I’d lost it? Or dropped it? Or stolen it?”

“You wouldn’t.” Poe shrugged, his elbows on his knees, his shoulders pulled in as much as he could, as though it would keep him safe. “And besides, it...made me feel better. About all of it. Knowing it was safe with you.”

“Better about what?” Rey knelt down in front of him, trying to catch his eye, but Poe looked away. “About going to the Capitol?” He nodded mutely. “What do - what happens there?”

“Nothing good.” The words somehow got past his gritted teeth. “Please, I don’t want to -”

“Okay.” Rey nodded, her eyes impossibly wide, looking like the water that churned under the boat. “...Okay. You don’t have to.”

“I hate what they’ve made me into.” Poe sobbed then, the tears hot and unexpected, but expected all the same. “I hate it, Rey. I hate myself, I hate them, I fucking hate - there’s nothing good in this world, do you understand me?” He slid off his seat until he knelt in front of her, and gripped her wrists. Rey didn’t look alarmed. Just sad.

“The only good thing in this fucking world is you. Do you understand me? I - I don’t know what I’d do, if something - if -” Poe panted slightly, shaking his head to clear it. “You and my dad, Rey, that’s all I have left. And I don’t even - as if you’d ever want me back. I’m half a person, and they just carve out more, and more, and more of me every time I go back. But I _have_ to go back, don’t you see? It’s-”

Rey blanched, and he realized his mistake. “...What do you mean, you have to go back-”

“They don’t like it if I say no,” Poe looked down again, the fire sputtering inside of him. “And like I said. You and my dad are all I have left.”

“It’s my fault that they….that you…”

“No.” Poe’s head jerked up again as he spoke quickly, gathering her hands up again in his own. “No, no, no, sweetheart, no, not at all, no. It’s - it’s their fault. It’s theirs. It’s theirs, and mine, but mostly theirs. Please. Please, it’s not your fault.”

“Why don’t you think I’d want you back?” Rey circled back, her brow furrowing, and Poe tensed.

“I’m...what they’ve done to me, I’m not. I’m not good, anymore, Rey.”

“Bullshit.” Rey scowled at him fiercely and leaned in to him, her forehead resting against his. “You’re good, Poe Dameron. You _are_ ” - her voice rose when he made a noise of disagreement - “You’re kind, and sweet, and gentle, and you’re _good_.”

“They made me a killer,” Poe wiped his nose and laughed darkly, wanting her to understand, to see. “And now I’m their whore, Rey.” He spat the word out, but Rey didn’t flinch from it.

“No.” She adjusted the way she sat, kneeling up higher so she could put her hands on either side of his face and direct him to gaze up at her. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true.” He’d never felt this angry. Why didn’t she believe him? “I’m their whore, everyone says so, you _must_ have heard the rumors by now. They’re all true, all of them. When I go to the Capitol, all I do is...is…” He cut himself off, overwhelmed by the urge to vomit again.

This was the most he’d ever spoken about his time in the Capitol.

“It’s them, Poe, not you.” Rey pressed her lips to his forehead, threatening to knock him backwards from the shock of it. “It’s not you. You’re good.” She kissed his forehead again, and Poe’s throat burned from how little he deserved her mouth on his body, her forgiveness, but-

“You’re so good,” Rey whispered, her hands brushing through his curls. Her fingers didn’t catch on any product; Poe had stood in the shower for over an hour when he’d returned yesterday.

He made a noise of grief in his throat, and Rey repeated herself again. “You’re so good, Poe.” Her lips pressed into his temple, and Poe wrapped his arms around her waist. “So good.”

He didn’t believe her. _How could he?_

“I’m not,” he croaked. “I’m-”

“You’re Poe,” Rey’s fingers were trembling as she held his jaw and pulled back to look at him. Somehow, he’d tumbled back onto his ass, and Rey was kneeling between his legs. It was the most vulnerable he’d felt in years, no matter how many layers of clothes he was wearing, because Rey Kenobi was taking him apart. “You’re Poe, and what they do to you is not you. It’s not.”

“I can’t-”

Rey smiled at him, sadly, pieces of her hair falling out from her braids in the wind. “You’re Poe Dameron, and I do want you back. I do. And it has nothing to do with them. What we are has nothing to do with them.”

The world hung between them for a long moment, while Poe stared up at her, trying to push through the confusion that Rey was in his arms, that she was saying these things to him, here, and now, and - he blinked, and it crashed in, breaking upon his thoughts that this really was real.

“What do you want?” Rey whispered, her fingers toying gently with his curls, longer than he personally liked, as they were caught up in the breeze off the ocean.

“You.” Poe hated the admission, knowing it was a weakness, but he was so far past lying.

Rey giggled, a surprisingly light sound. “I got that. I meant - do you want to kiss me?”

She sounded unsure of herself, a blush creeping into her cheeks, and Poe fought the urge to laugh hysterically.

“What?” Rey shifted in his arms when he didn’t answer.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since I learned what kissing was.”

“You - _what_?”

“I saw you racing in the schoolyard one day. We were kids, and you realized Reed was cheating, so you tripped him and scolded him, and I’d never seen anything like it.” Poe grinned at Rey’s confused expression. “That was the first day I ever saw you. I was a total goner.”

“All this time?” Rey whispered, her hand cupping his cheek. Poe closed his eyes and nuzzled into it. He’d never been treated this carefully, not since he huddled under a tarp with a boy whose eyes looked like the sun.

“Yes.” Poe kissed her palm, cataloguing this, the first moment his lips ever touched Rey. “So. Can I kiss you?”

Rey grinned and nodded, looping her arms around his neck. “I might be bad at it,” she said cheerfully.

“How could you be bad at it?” Stupidly, his heart began to pound in his chest, although he’d done a thousand and one things farther, more complicated, more terrifying than kiss the girl he’d loved for almost ten years.

“I’ve never done it before.”

“Never?” Poe repeated, sudden doubt and regret tugging at his heart. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t -

“I was waiting for you, idiot.” Rey grinned at him, her nose wrinkling, and Poe laughed, a short, disbelieving sound, and closed the final distance between them.

Rey kissed him back enthusiastically, her body pressed against him, feeling better than all the times he’d dreamed of this, both awake and asleep. Nothing could compare to this, the salt water that had dried on her lip that he licked away eagerly, to the hot, real press of her mouth against his, to the way her arms tightened around his neck, feeling safe and comforting, and not restricting or terrifying in any way.

She pulled away with a gasp as though coming up from the water for air, and Poe fought for breath as well. “Again?” Rey asked, her voice lower than normal, and Poe nodded quickly, his hands firm on her hips while he pulled her back down. Rey surged up to kiss him heartily before awkwardly readjusting to kneel on the outside of his legs. She settled back down with a satisified noise, Poe pushing his legs together to give her somewhere to sit, and fought back his body’s sudden, intense interest in the proceedings.

Instead, he gripped her thighs, keeping her slightly elevated off his lap, and accepted the drowsy, short kisses she shared with him, her tongue slipping out tentatively to trace his own bottom lip. Poe gripped her wrists with a groan, smiling up into the kiss deliriously, still impossibly dazed by her willingness to do this, to share this with him.

And he couldn’t find it in him to regret telling her about what had happened to him, about what had been done to him - she didn’t have the details, and he hoped violently she never would, but she knew _of_ it. Rather than terrify him, it felt freeing, liberating, to know that he’d shown the most awful, disgusting part of himself to her, and she’d accepted it, still wanted him, still might actually be able to -

“Sorry.” Rey pulled away, her face fully flushed now, and she tried to smooth his hair back down with a giggle that sounded unlike any noise she’d ever made. “Sorry, I got carried away.”

“Me too.” Poe couldn’t look away from her mouth, now swollen red with kisses, his kisses. He was greedy for it.

“We need to head back soon.” Rey rested her forehead on his with a sigh, and Poe froze underneath her, the reality slamming into him, picking him up and throwing him to the ground. How could he have forgotten?

An idea seized him, impossible to escape from, wrapping him up in possibility and teasing him with the very slender chance that it could work.

“What if we didn’t go?” Poe asked quietly.

“What do you mean?” Rey leaned away from him, and he tried not to move too much, too aware of his thumbs resting on her lean thighs as she straddled him.

“I mean,” Poe cleared his throat. “Let’s not go today. Or ever again.”

He hated how kind, almost amused, Rey’s eyes looked in that moment. He needed her to listen, damnit, not think this was some random daydream. “Let’s just...sail off the edge of the world,” Poe continued, tugging at her hands. “C’mon, we can make it, let’s - let’s go. I have a boat, and money, and, and we can go back and get Kes and Obi Wan, and-”

“You’re scaring me.” Rey didn’t look amused anymore. She smoothed her thumb across his brow, frowning.

“I scare myself half the time too,” Poe muttered. “But I mean it. We can make it. We can get out of here, away from all of it, and-”

“And they could catch us,” Rey pointed out sadly. “We need to stay, Poe. They’ll kill us if they caught us - they might kill you if they even heard you talking like that.”

A flash of paranoia, but he shoved it away - no. They couldn’t hear him out here. He built this boat himself, checked it daily. It wasn’t like his rooms in the Capitol, like the arena. This was different.

Another thought: Poe was too valuable to Snoke to die, which meant the only people who would suffer if he was overheard were…

“I’m sorry.” Poe wilted and shook his head. “I’m - I don’t know what came over me.”

“Hey.” Rey kissed the top of his head gently, and Poe wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her collarbone. “I only have to get through two more Reapings. And I don’t care what the Capitol does - I’ll always want you. As long as you come home to me.”

He’d thought of it that way for so long now, that it was surprising to hear it in Rey’s voice, surprisingly but so impossibly lovely at the same time. Poe nodded, fighting the tears behind his eyes.

“You are my home,” he whispered against her skin, and he felt her heartbeat trip in her chest. Poe clenched his eyes shut and let Rey hold him, let himself be comforted if only for a few minutes.

He guided the ship back to shore ten minutes later, Rey standing at his side while he headed for the dock. She squeezed his hand once more before jumping out onto the dock, and she spun around to blow him a kiss; he pretended to catch it with a giddy grin before she ran back towards the main village. Poe stayed behind to finish typing up the boat, and when he looked up, he saw the camera crew and his stylists waiting on the hill.

Poe released a sigh, and when he stepped out on the dock, he left the parts of himself that were to be untouched by the Capitol behind him on a boat where he’d spent the happiest minutes of his life.

***

“Aleksander Martin!” The chipper representative announced into the microphone. Poe stood behind her in a golden shirt with a neck cut so low it almost reached his navel. His pants felt painted on.

He refused to look out to the sixteen-year-old girls and instead focused on taking the hand of the young man who stumbled on stage. “I got you,” Poe muttered when the boy tripped - thirteen, skinny, angry - and he caught him.

Aleksander shook him off and stood, still bristling, next to the Capitol woman. Poe’d never been bothered to learn her name.

“And the female tribute from District Four is…” The woman trailed off excitedly, grinning at Poe before she pulled out the slip of paper. Poe fought the urge to make a rude hand gesture, as the cameras were mainly pointed at him. He couldn’t bring himself to look up and see what they’d styled him into this morning.

Something sank like lead behind his heart, and Poe waited and waited and waited for her to just get it over with, to say a name so he could go and spend a month in the Capitol, forgetting how to be a person, until he came home, back to a girl with long brown hair and eyes that looked like the sea on a stormy day who would hold him and kiss him and tell him that he was good, still.

Then, from a great distance, he heard a too-familiar name in a Capitol accent.

“...Rey Kenobi!”

***

In the end, he had to shake the hand of the girl he loved in front of three dozen cameras.

In the end, he had to lead her to her death with a smile.

In the end, he realized he was always going to lose her, somehow.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the /next/ chapter is going to at least focus on the training period where Rey becomes a tribute and goes through the interviews, etc. Expect lots of pining/angst on Poe's part. That's where she meets Ben, and he becomes fascinated by her, and the Games start to roll out like a very strange version of The Force Awakens/Last Jedi/ Katniss and Peeta
> 
> I do hope people are enjoying this! I'm having a lot of fun writing it, but if people are hating it, I probably won't have the energy to finish the broader storyline that I have planned (past Rey's games).
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking with it! Sorry for the increasing chapter count/drawing it out!


	4. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey Kenobi trains for the 49th Annual Hunger Games under Poe Dameron, her mentor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Receives unpleasant anons yet again*  
> *Looks up from pits of fic-writing stupor*  
> *Grunts*  
> *Goes back to writing angst-ridden fic in stupor*
> 
> WARNINGS: Continued discussion of Poe's forced prostitution under the Capitol. All references, no depiction of sex acts. Descriptions of how Poe feels before/after/during. 
> 
> WARNING: Drug use. Poe takes drugs to either deal with his clientele, or takes them as part of his 'deal' with clients.
> 
> WARNING: Alcohol abuse. Poe drinks heavily at times to cope.
> 
> WARNING: Violence - some sparring/fighting (Typical of Hunger Games)
> 
> WARNING: Angst. So much angst. 
> 
>  
> 
> [I know it's like 10:30 EDT and a lot of people might be asleep and this is 10,000 words, but ? I hope? people enjoy it?)

Kes Dameron wandered into the Justice Building, the one that had once housed ship captains, his hat in his hands.

“Papa?” Poe blinked in surprise from where he stood, between two doors. Inside the one to his left, Aleksander Martin’s parents could be heard crying. When they walked out though, their eyes wouldn’t be red.

That wouldn’t do for the cameras. Not in District Four. Parents didn’t cry over their children in District Four.

They were proud to send their children to the Capitol in District Four. They were Careers. They were stronger than the other districts, better. They certainly didn’t cry over losing children to the Games.

Poe turned and looked at the other door in the hall, a door that hadn’t opened since Rey Kenobi vanished inside.

He licked his lip.

“Where’s -”

“Old Ben’s having a bad day.” Kes wiped his hand along his brow and grimaced. “I told him to come say goodbye to Rey. He said she always swims in the morning, and he’d see her when she got home.”

Poe nodded, opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. He nodded again, his throat working over the lump that hadn’t disappeared yet.

“I should go-” He gestured uselessly at the door to his right, but his hand trembled and he dropped it to his side.

“No. I’ll go.” Kes kissed the side of Poe’s head quickly before knocking on the door.

“You can come in.” He could hear Rey whisper from behind the door,, and the Peacekeeper on the inside pulled it open.

He could see Rey, just beyond the shoulder of the white uniform. She sat in the window, her hair still in braids, the strap of her dress hanging off one shoulder, not even looking to the door. He wondered if she knew Obi Wan was having a bad day. He wondered if she regretted not running.

She didn’t look over to him, and his father walked into the room.

The Peacekeeper was the last thing Poe saw before the door closed.

***

When Kes Dameron emerged from the room five minutes later, he didn’t hide that he’d been crying.

***

The sun glinted off the sea as the silver train flashed by, winding along the coast at a dizzying speed. Poe remembered being unable to tear his eyes away from the ocean, once. He remembered what it was like to realize there was something so big, so beautiful in the world.

Something bigger than the Games.

He’d thought that maybe there were a lot of things bigger than the Games - the way it felt inside him, for instance, when a girl with eyes like the sea on a stormy day laughed at something he said, when she held his hand in hers, the hands with callouses under the fingers, when she rested her head on his shoulder, when she kissed him and told him that he could be good still.

But now, the girl with eyes like the sea on a stormy day was with him on the silver train, sitting in a chair, her knees drawn to her chest, her chin on her knees, her eyes fixed on nothing at all.

Poe thought that maybe there was nothing that was actually bigger than the Games.

***

“I might not…” Poe trailed off, his fingers trailing along Rey’s bare arm. She smiled up at him tentatively, the afternoon sunlight filtering into the car.

Maz Kanata, the only other living victor from Four, who’d fucked off to the foothills sometime around the death of her husband fifteen years prior, was sitting with Aleksander - or Sandy, as Poe had come to learn - and was chatting idly with the boy, who had yet to smile.

Poe still didn’t know what to think of Maz, the second-ever Victor, in her late sixties but looking somehow older from years of exposure to the sun and whatever the Capitol had done to her. She barely interacted with him in the Capitol, but when she did, she offered him the kind of kindness and support that was quite frankly dangerous to have in the Capitol, if only because it came close to reminding Poe that he was a person.

Poe had started to realize what eased the process of slipping back into his life as a boy - a man, now, eighteen for almost ten months - from District Four, a man who could smile at a girl on his boat, who could tell her stories and braid her hair and hold her hand and listen when she told him he was still good. It was easier to become what he used to be, when he let himself forget he was a person when he was in the Capitol.

Which brought him to this conversation, half in the corridor of the train as it hurtled towards the city.

“Might not what?” Rey prompted softly when he got lost in his thoughts.

“I’m not the same,” Poe admitted shamefully. “When I’m there. I’m not. Me.”

“I understand. I’ve seen your interviews. Very charming.” Rey smiled, but Poe shook his head.

“Not like that.” He coughed dryly and squeezed his eyes shut. “I need to play a part when I’m there, Sunshine. I don’t want you to think that it’s real. It’s not real, it’s not” - somehow his voice had started to grow louder, and he knew Maz and Sandy were looking at him now - “I swear to you, what I say when I’m there, what I do, unless it’s just you and me, it’s not _real,_ please, tell me you understand, please-”

“I understand,” Rey repeated, gripping his wrist and pulling him fully into the corridor. The door shut behind them, leaving them alone. Rey raised up on her toes slightly to kiss his forehead, and she brushed her fingers over the spot her lips had touched.

“I’m not real when I’m there,” Poe whispered, his shoulders slumping.

“You’re always real, Poe Dameron.” Her thin arms wound around his neck, and Poe, fool that he was, wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his nose into her neck and didn’t argue.

Rey Kenobi was the smartest person he’d ever met, but he wondered how long it would be before she realized that she was wrong this time.

***

“Now we match,” Rey said thoughtfully, studying her sleek, hairless legs.

The second they’d gotten off the train, Rey and Sandy had been dragged off by their respective beauty teams to be worked down to “Beauty Base Zero.”

On some level, Poe yearned for the day when that was the only kind of regimen he had to go through. All the same, he remembered his fascinated horror at the process when he was fifteen.

Rey looked at her arms and legs with the same combination of feeling before she looked up at him. “What do you think? Am I pretty yet?”

He stared at her for a long moment, so intensely she apparently had to drop her own gaze. Then, he murmured his answer softly into the sterile room, his eyes tired and so, so heavy.

“You were always pretty, Sunshine.”

***

The first stylist they sent in poked at Rey’s face after she nervously complied with their order to smile.

“Not wide enough,” the man sniffed haughtily. “We can fix that.” He fit his fingers on either side of her teeth and _tugged,_ hard enough to make Rey whimper in pain, her small hands shoving outwards in self defense.

Rey Kenobi, who’d always kept her smiles tucked away in the corner of her mouth, shrieked in surprise when Poe Dameron reached out and broke every finger on the stylist’s hand, and his wrist for good measure.

He spent the night with a sadist or two - he couldn’t tell through the pulsating colors behind his eyes, the effect of whatever they’d pumped him full of - and the next morning in the medical center, being Rebuilt.

Poe didn’t spend a single second doubting if it was worth it.

***

When he was finally cleared to return to District Four’s floor, Poe walked in at the tail end of breakfast. Sandy was already done eating, scowling out the window. Maz shot him a concerned look even as she tried to soothe the boy.

Rey stood up so quickly, she knocked her chair back.

“I’m fine,” Poe whispered to her. “I’m - I’m fine, sweetheart.” With a shake of her head, Rey grabbed his hand and dragged him away from the common area. Sandy snorted angrily right before they turned the corner.

Rey combed her fingers anxiously through his hair, searching his eyes, and Poe avoided hers as long as possible. He knew his pupils were blown from the Dulcodone they’d pumped him full of in the medical center, and he knew his body was still reacting to the sildenafil citrate they’d injected him with last night when he was dragged bodily to the mansion on the outskirts of the Capitol.

“Poe.” His name shattered around the middle in her voice, a sign of Rey’s distress. He was the last person she should cry over; but, he was strangely flattered that she cared this much. No one had ever cared about him in the Capitol before.

“I couldn’t let ‘em touch you.” He swayed on his feet, his words slurred. In a few hours, Poe might feel shame. Right now, he just felt tired, so very dirty. “Not - not you. You’re perf’ct already, K’nobi.”

Rey cupped his cheek in her hand, her eyes luminous. He swore the colors in them swam for a second, the green and brown and bits of grey rotating around each other.

No. Must be the residual kittycat in his system.

Her thumb pressed gently into his cheek, a few inches under his right eye. Poe forgot to flinch.

“You used to have a scar here.” Her voice focused in slightly, but faded away. The world began to fizzle at the edges, Poe’s grip on it tenuous at best. He should have been asleep by now. He needed to crash. For a few hours. Poe remembered to nod, wondered how many seconds it had been.

Her thumb stroked over the spot tentatively. “That’s so strange...I can still feel it.”

“Me too.”

***

Karé Kun arrived a few minutes after nine a.m., dressed subtly in golds and reds, the same colors that danced in her eyes. Poe liked her - she was married to a former Victor whose nickname was Snap, a chilling reminder of how he’d fought his way out of his own arena.

There’d been no weapons in the 39th Games.

Karé spoke softly and when Rey asked if there was anything she wanted to change, Karé smiled mysteriously and shook her head.

“I have a feeling you’re perfect like this,” Karé noted, extending her warm smile to Sandy, who sat next to Rey on the couch. “Would you like to see some sketches?”

***

Poe stood two rows behind President Snoke at the Tribute Parade and watched the chariots approach.

The boy from District One was massive, and wore nothing but black pants that came up above his navel. His hair looked like obsidian, shining brightly under the sun, and he didn’t wave, but the people screamed for him anyway. The girl at his side was deadly, beautiful and calm, and she smirked at the audience as they drove by.

He couldn’t focus on the next two chariots that approached, but he forced himself to blow kisses at the monitor every now and then, wink, smile, repeat. Like the boy from One, he wasn’t wearing a shirt either, but glitter had been painted onto his skin, giving him the appearance of being made of gold.

When the trumpets announced the arrival of District Four, Poe pursed his lips attractively and whistled in excitement, giggling brightly as the chariot approached the camera.

He glanced up, and wondered if he caught his expression in time.

Sandy and Rey were dressed to match, their clothing wrapped around them like seaweed, the dark green fabric swathing them almost like a tunic; only flashes of Sandy’s chest and Rey’s midriff were visible, and their make up matched, eye shadow the color of the ocean highlighting the color of Rey’s eyes painfully well.

Rey wasn’t beautiful; the word didn’t do her justice. Poe cleared his throat and gave a thumbs up to the camera as the audience screamed Rey’s name.

She didn’t smile once.

He never stopped smiling.

***

After they’d cleaned up from the parade and returned to the training center, Poe instructed Aleksander to learn about knots and foraging, as he’d come from a Merchant family and didn’t fend for himself the way Rey had her whole life. Sandy shrugged him off and marched the doors by himself.

He grabbed Rey by the hand before she could walk by him. “Just--” He cleared his throat. “Don’t let them see how special you are. Not at first.”

“Alright.”

Neither of them spoke about the wine bottle she’d ripped out of his hand last night when he’d stumbled in, grossly drunk and more than a little high, dripping with pheromones and perfume and things he never wanted to tell her about, but she saw anyway. Neither of them spoke about the tears in her eyes, the ones he so rarely saw, when she peeled him off the floor, when she helped him into the shower. Neither of them spoke about how Maz had to come in and pull Rey away when Poe started to scream, the water feeling like daggers - daggers flashing in and out of a boy with golden eyes’ body, daggers under his ribs, burrowing into every soft spot left - against his raw skin.

“Good luck,” he whispered. “I’ll be up there, watching.” _As long as they don’t pull me away,_ he thought bitterly.

The tributes from Twelve, Clover and Olive, and their formidable Mentor (Poe didn’t know a lot about the tall, rugged man, but he had a feeling it was bad that he was only known as Chewie, and he envied that he never actually saw him in the Capitol outside of the Games) walked towards them, and Rey straightened her spine and tightened her braid.

“Thanks, Dameron.” She nodded at him calmly, her jaw set, tone aloof and professional. “Try not to get lost on your way up there.”

Chewie hooted as Rey brushed past Poe and into the training room, a howling, raspy laugh that Poe had never heard before.

He pretended the words didn’t cut at him, reminded himself that he’d arranged for them to be less than friends in public.

If the Capitol saw what she was worth to _Poe Dameron,_ they’d only start to wonder what she was worth to them.

Poe nodded at Chewie and stalked to the viewing room without another word.

***

Rey immediately caught the eye of the tributes from District One and Two.

It made sense, he thought bitterly as he watched from behind the force field. She was tall, and clearly strong, her daily swims making her muscles lean and apparent. The way she carried herself commanded attention, an obvious blend of strength and grace.

Then, she grabbed a handful of daggers and threw them at the targets.

Each one hit dead center.

Finn Storm whistled low under his breath from where he sat, next to Poe.

(Poe used to wonder why Victors and Mentors were allowed to watch the training sessions together, but then he remembered that they all knew how to play the game; why not make it more interesting so they could coach the children in their care of how to best kill the competition?)

“Your girl is good with a knife,” he complimented with a warm smile. It was beyond Poe how Finn’s smile could remain warm after his Games - he’d been forced to kill the runner-up, a brutal boy from One who had stabbed Tommy Calhan so many times Poe hadn’t been able to move his eyes from Tommy’s face in the morgue. “Did you know?”

“No,” Poe snapped, already exhausted, the adrenaline they’d pumped into him this morning at two a.m. after his comedown already very much worn off. “And she’s not my girl.”

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence, and then:

Finn placed his hand, calloused from his work on his parents’ farm, a detail Poe remembered from Finn’s interview last year, on the arm of Poe’s chair.

“How long?” Finn whispered.

“How long what?” Poe didn’t look away from where Rey was helping Sandy at the foraging station. He didn’t look away from the kind smile she gave the other tribute, that one stubborn piece of hair falling in her eyes. He didn’t look away from how Sandy beamed up at her, the first smile he’d seen on the boy’s face since they arrived.

He didn’t look away from how the boy from District One was staring.

“How long have you loved her?” Finn asked the question so quietly, Poe thought he imagined it, but his head snapped towards the other Victor quickly, fast enough that his neck popped.

“Never say that again,” Poe snapped, looking over his shoulder wildly. “It’s not - it’s not fucking true, don’t say shit like that-”

“Of course it is.” Finn settled back in his seat, his hand withdrawing to rest on his own chair.

“And how do you know that?” Poe glared at him, and Finn’s smile was back, but this time small and sad and private.

“Because,” Finn shook his head, “You’re always smiling. Always the Capitol smile, Poe Dameron, the man himself, smiles as wide as the day is long. But now?” Finn pointed at his own face, up to the small dimple that the Capitol hadn’t found a way to erase yet. “Not smiling.”

***

Poe felt like a boat had capsized as he looked down at Rey. When he looked to the side, he saw Finn reach over and place his hand over Rose Tico’s.

She sat, hands clasped on her lap, leg bouncing anxiously, her eyes trained on this year’s tribute from District Three.

Paige Tico was stringing a bow and arrow, a look of concentration on her lovely face. She was eighteen years old, a year older than her sister. Her Mentor.

Poe watched as Rose Tico’s lip trembled and wondered just what, exactly, she’d said no to.

***

The boy from District One circled Rey like a gull on the coast, hovering over its dinner.

His name was Ben Solo, Poe learned from their mentor, a snarky, cold-hearted man named Tarkin who was almost as old as Maz. The female tribute’s name was Bazine Netal, but Poe didn’t focus on her as much.

It wasn’t her keen eyes that followed Rey Kenobi around the training room, that watched her every move.

***

On the second day of training, Ben and Rey were paired up together during a sparring match.

“I thought they weren’t supposed to fight before the Games,” Poe said through gritted teeth to the Peacekeeper assigned to watching over the Victors, the finest the country had to offer.

Hail Panem.

“New rules this year.” The Peacekeeper shrugged. He wasn’t yet old enough for his moustache to grow in, and it just made him look younger, more inexperienced.

Poe wondered if he’d left behind a mother in District Two, if he had a girl who he’d hold the world up for, if there was anything that made him feel like he had to be here. Somehow, the thought didn’t win Poe’s sympathy.

He dragged his hands through his hair and felt like he was vibrating as he watched Ben and Rey line up with their staffs.

Her eyes focused in on Ben’s feet immediately, an assessing, cold gaze that made Poe wonder if she’d ever fought with a staff before. She used one to poke around the caves in District Four, and to walk up the hills with her grandfather, but fighting was something else entirely.

Then, Ben lunged forward, and Rey surged to meet him.

They moved like poetry.

Poe watched in horror, in fascination, as Rey and Ben wove around each other, staffs slamming against each other. The other tribute was perhaps half a foot taller than her or more, with easily a hundred pounds on her slim frame; Rey used that to her advantage, ducking under his more ungainly swings and slipping the staff here and there between his defenses. The boy roared at one point, and Sandy and the two tributes from Twelve flinched although they weren’t involved in the conflict.

Rey roared back.

***

Poe was thrown backwards, violently, by the force field, when Ben knocked Rey to the ground after she smacked the staff out of his hand with a particularly vicious jab at his dominant hand. The flash of silver was what had caused Poe to throw himself at the edge of the Victor’s viewing room, the dagger that appeared out of nowhere - _Muran dead, Muran bleeding, Muran -_ Rey’s scream of surprise.

The dagger cut into her bicep as Ben snarled something inaudible, and Finn and Rose both hauled Poe back from the edge.

“ _No,_ ” Finn panted, “ _No, Poe, don’t let them see_ \- He cheated!” Finn raised his voice indignantly on the last two words for the Peacekeeper to hear. “You didn't say they could Forcing cheat!”

“Yeah!” Rose scowled, her diminutive stature and sweet, cute face doing little to dispel the memory of how coldly and efficiently she’d electrocuted six tributes at once last year. “What the _Force_?”

Poe was distantly aware of them saving his ass because all he could see was Rey, her teeth gritted in pain - but then, her hand reached out to grab her abandoned staff, and she grabbed it with another scream, but this time of anger.

She slammed the staff into Ben Solo’s face, and the boy tumbled back.

Rey followed, leaping to her feet and striking him again.

***

There was blood on the mat when the Peacekeepers cleared the training room.

***

They didn’t talk about it at lunch, but Sandy watched Rey with something uncomfortably close to awe in his eyes as she stabbed at her meal with a scowl on her face.

Maz patted them both on the hand before sighing and toddling off to speak to Cassian, another older Victor from District Six, one of the few people in the Capitol who Poe Dameron thought was a bigger liar than himself.

Poe tried to catch Rey’s eye, but remembered that he couldn’t run his hands over the bandage on her upper arm, remembered that it wasn’t his place to kiss her hair and stroke her braid and hold her so tightly the Capitol couldn’t ever separate them. He gave up, his eyes flitting to Sandy, who was glaring at him, his small frame vibrating in anger.

He was about to ask what the kid’s problem was when -

“May I?” Ben Solo slid onto the bench next to Poe, sitting directly across from Rey. At this angle, Poe could see the line on his face where Rey’s staff had broken skin - he remembered it being much wider, much more hideous.

Rey looked at him in something that wasn’t quite surprise or fear. Her hand reached up to trace under her own eye. “They didn’t fix that up for you?”

“Nah.” Ben rested his elbows on the table and grinned at her. “I told them I liked it.” Rey lifted her eyebrows but didn’t say anything, just went back to poking at her food. “Who taught you how to fight like that?”

“Myself.” Rey popped a piece of food in her mouth and chewed with absolutely none of the decorum expected in the Capitol, in District One or Two.

“Thought as much.” He grinned at her, leaning over the table. Fear slammed into Poe, a sudden awareness of how much larger Ben was than Rey, than himself. Eighteen years old, a volunteer from one of the most powerful districts - who was looking at Rey with brown eyes hot enough to burn. “You’re a real wildcat, Four.”

“Four?”

“A nickname. Four is your district, right?” Ben cocked his head at her, his thick brown hair shifting from the movement, his eyes going to the patch on her training jacket that had her number on it. “Maybe I should just call you wildcat if you don’t like the nickname - do you have wildcats in Four?”

“No.” Rey set her fork down and pushed the plate towards the middle of the table, where Ben Solo’s unnaturally large hands were folded. “But we do have sharks.”

***

The next day, Ben Solo and the tall red-haired boy from Two approached Rey as soon as she picked up a bow and arrow.

Poe watched with growing unease while Rey begrudgingly allowed them to follow her circuit for the day; her shadow, Sandy, peeled away from them quickly enough, and the small boy went to work on his own project at the camouflage station.

At one point, Rey muttered something while picking up a trident, and Poe didn’t imagine the way Ben’s eyes flashed up to the Victor room. When he laughed, everyone in the training center stopped and stared at him, at the way he grinned down at Rey Kenobi, the prettiest girl in District Four.

***

“You can’t trust him,” Poe slurred at Rey that night, well after midnight. She stood in her doorway, eyes wide, hair mussed from whatever sleep she’d been able to get, the rest that he’d stolen from her by being a weak-willed idiot who needed to see her, to know that she was okay, that the hallucinations from the jackoline weren’t real, that her body was whole and unbroken. “Y’you can’t.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Rey whispered, ducking under his arm and guiding him to the refresher.

“He’s a Career,” Poe said, staring up at her from the bottom of the ‘fresher floor, which he’d collapsed onto the second Rey let go of him. “H-he’s only got his mind on winning.”

“Don’t we all?” Rey squatted down to frown at him before shaking her head. “It’s nothing, Poe. They just think I’m a good ally.”

“Mhm.” Poe nodded, wincing as she turned up the temperature on the water cascading around him, plastering his already thin shirt to his chest, drenching his tight pants, making them cling more to his shaking legs which felt like trembling gelatin under the water pressure. “No, ‘s too warm, please-”

“It’s freezing, Poe.” Rey caught his hand when he reached up to change the dial. “Just let me take care of you, okay?”

“I thought,” Poe sniffed, his face crumpling for a second under the weight of all of it, the Games, the drugs, the patrons who wanted more and more and more of him, “That was my job.”

The water continued to fall around them, Rey half-in, half-out of the stream, and Poe rested his head against the cool marble, lolling back and forth slightly while he fought to keep the tears from his eyes.

Then, the water switched temperature, and his stomach swooped pleasantly; his eyes fluttered shut, and Poe laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was just all so _forcing_ funny -

When he opened his eyes, Rey was gone, and Maz Kanata perched at the edge of the tub, gazing at him with regret.

***

Ben Solo brought Armitage Hux to Rey’s station the next day, and the day after that. Bazine Netal stayed away, but Gwenmere Phasma, the girl from Two who was taller than Hux, came with them on the fifth day. She looked begrudgingly impressed when Rey demonstrated her ability to weave a net, and the girls stood side by side silently, practicing the skill, as Hux and Solo wandered off to practice sword-fighting.

Phasma didn’t seem too bad, Poe thought, but that was probably how she operated, how most of the pleasant Careers operated. Draw them in, and enjoy the surprise when you gut them.

Poe turned and vomited into a nearby trash receptacle; when he pulled his head clear a minute later, Finn offered him a glass of water and a sympathetic smile.

***

Finn’s tributes were twins.

Nimaa and Jaku Dogwood, twelve years old, with stances like birds.

Their eyes followed Rey around the training center, too, but they watched other tributes with equal interest.

They never let go of each other, and they never touched the weapons.

Poe watched them and wondered what their parents had done, what their families had done, what they had said no to.

Finn watched them, and Poe was afraid to ask what he was thinking.

***

Ben Solo ate with them every day, and Sandy scooted closer to Rey each time his shadow fell over the table. He smiled and called her _wildcat_ even when it made Rey scowl and swat at his arm with her fork - Ben would only catch her hand and laugh, a pleasant rumble that sounded like an earthquake under Poe’s feet.

Rey Kenobi was the smartest person Poe ever met - but somehow the child that trembled under her arm could see what she couldn’t.

***

On the nights that Poe was sober and on their floor, when he wasn’t called away by a patron or Snoke or his own desperate attempts to curry favor for Rey - not that she needed it, after the chariot rides - he waited until the knock at his door, the same pattern that had greeted him every morning out on his boat for the last three years.

When he answered, Rey stepped into his arms without hesitation, even as she saw the parts of him that made him Poe fall away, day by day, as he became the thing that the Capitol made him.

***

The night after the private training session, they gathered in front of the holoscreen in the middle of Four’s rooms.

Well, Maz, Sandy, and Rey did. Even Karé was there.

Poe was wrapped in someone else’s silk sheets while they slept off their cocktail behind him, and his eyes were glued to the screen, the volume turned down to zero so he could watch in peace.

Some notable scores:

Ben Solo, 10.

Armitage Hux, 10.

Gwenmere Phasma, 10.

Rey Kenobi, 11.

Jaku and Nimaa, 6. Each.

***

Tributes rarely scored above a ten.

Poe wondered what he’d done, what he’d accidentally said no to when he was high, who he’d said no to, to get her that score.

***

He wondered if she could taste the apology in his kiss that night.

If she could, she didn’t tell him. She just held him and told him he was good still, told him that he was good until he cried into her neck while her hands combed through his curls, catching on the product that always seemed to linger in the Capitol.

***

Poe sat in the auditorium during the interviews, waiting for it to be over, praying it never ended because when it did, they were six hours closer to the start of the Games. Six hours closer to losing Rey.

Last year, the girls had gone first, so this year, it was the gentlemen’s turn.

Lando Calrissian, who was probably older than the Games themselves but didn’t look a day over thirty, beamed and took his seat, after bowing playfully to the adoring crowd.

Ben Solo was the first interview.

He wore all black, a thick, almost quilted fabric to his tunic that covered him up to his aristocratic jawline. He looked like Death.

“So, Benjamin.” Lando waggled his eyebrows at the tall boy, whose lips barely twitched in response. “I hear you’re quite formidable - a ten! How delightfully proud your parents must be.”

“I don’t care about their approval,” Ben sneered before his face smoothed over. “As long as I make the Capitol proud.” He smiled then, as the audience cheered. Poe decided to tune the rest of it out, and played back a good memory of Rey in his arms on his boat. It was a luxury he rarely allowed himself, after all.

But, he was brought back to the moment quickly.

“How did you enjoy training, Benjamin?”

“It was fine.” Ben shook his head and sighed. “If it weren’t for…”

“For what?” Lando smiled at him pleasantly, and Ben studied his large hands for a second.

“I fell in love.”

“What?” Lando’s legs had been crossed a second before, but then his leg slid down and his foot hit the floor with an audible thump. Nervous whispers broke out in the audience.  “You-”

“I fell in love,” “Ben repeated, and Poe’s stomach sank into the underworld, never to return. “With a girl from another District.”

“You fell in -” Lando’s eyes widened, and the audience started to grow ouder. Lando raised a hand, and they quieted somewhat. “With which young lady?”

“Rey Kenobi.”

The audience broke into shrieks and applause and the sounds of sighing. Some even started to cry.

Poe felt like a wreck, washed up on the shore.

“You just met,” Lando said with a nervous - genuine, maybe - laugh. “How can you be so sure?”

“She’s mine,” Ben said stubbornly, his jaw set, his eyes terrifying. “We’re meant to be together.”

“But, my dear boy...how do you feel, knowing that only one of you…” Lando trailed off. Poe almost felt bad for the poor bastard; this probably wasn’t ever covered in his training or his script.

Ben looked right into the camera, his face transformed by rage. “She’s mine. And I’ll burn these Games to the ground to see her at my side.”

***

Aleksander Martin stumbled on stage, looking tragically young in his too-big suit. A nice touch by Karé.

The audience had barely settled down during Hux and Phasma’s interview, and barely kept still during Three’s.

But, little Aleksander took his seat and smiled toothily at Lando, and even Poe’s heart was tugged at by how innocent he looked.

“Some surprising turns of events tonight,” Lando noted, after they got through the customary small talk about families and fears. “How are you feeling?” He must have been trying to steer the conversation towards training, Poe thought blearily, what Sandy had seen or witnessed as the love blossomed between One and Four. He knew how this worked. Drain the story for all its worth, how the star-crossed lovers met. Good for ratings.

“It’s not that surprising.” Aleksander’s shoulders almost reached his ears when he shrugged, still swimming in his too-big suit.

“Oh?” Lando grinned at the camera and then over at the small boy. “Why is that, Aleksander?”

“Just Sandy.”

“Alright, Just Sandy.” More laughter from the audience. “Why isn’t it surprising? I mean we can all agree that Rey is beautiful! And you! District Four always provides us with such attractive tributes.”

The crowd clapped and cheered, and Poe’s eyes flicked up to the monitor - his face was projected on almost every one. He grinned, all teeth, and waved, blowing a kiss randomly over his shoulder. Men and women screamed, diving to catch it.

“Well. No, I mean - my big brother’s best friend was Tommy Calhan,” Sandy said.

“Oh, Tommy. What a strong young man! We were all surprised when he didn’t win! Not that we don’t love our victor from last year!”

The camera panned in on Rose Tico.

Her sister’s interview had been before Sandy’s. Rose didn’t bother to smile.

“Yeah. Well, Tommy was sort of …” Sandy rubbed a hand through his hair. “In love with Rey. Kenobi.”

“What?” Lando gasped in surprise that was less genuine that before, after the other, similar confession of the night. “Oh, that dear boy-”

Tommy had spoken at length in his interview last year about the girl waiting for him back home, the one he wanted to make proud, a girl who reminded him of the sea (“ _That’s why I don’t have a token,”_ he’d said proudly, smirking up at the audience towards Poe’s seat, “ _Because the thought of her is the only thing that will get me through this._ ”). Poe never asked Rey about it. She’d never mentioned it.

“He was crazy about her. All of the boys in school were - are - crazy about her.”

“Is that so?” Lando laughed brightly and grinned up at the audience, including them in Sandy’s story. The boy swung his legs back and forth, the picture of innocence. “All of them?”

“Mhm.” Sandy smiled sweetly. Poe felt like the room had gone up fifteen degrees; sweat prickled at his collar, and nausea clawed at his throat. “Even Poe Dameron is in love with her.”

***

Poe smiled manically and laughed when someone in the audience screamed _“Is it true?_ ”

“ _I have no idea what he’s talking about_!” Poe mouthed obnoxiously, his hands spread wide as he turned to address the person who screamed. Onstage, Sandy kept swinging his legs back and forth, back and forth.

Poe turned and shrugged at the camera, a roll of his eyes - _kids these days._

Poe smiled and smirked and leaned back in his chair, the picture of nonchalance.

***

Poe Dameron wondered that if, when, the Capitol finally, finally wrung him dry and tore him into little pieces so that every one of them could have a bit of Poe, even in death, they’d find that Rey Kenobi’s name was carved into his heart, deeper than they could ever Rebuild it.

***

“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” Rey said quietly, after Lando asked if she had anyone waiting for her back home.

She looked like a goddess in her green-blue dress. It fell like waves over her long legs; her hair was unbound, floating around her head to make it look as though she were floating in water. A crown of golden rope circled her head, and golden rope cinched the waist of her gown, giving her the appearance of curves.

She was resplendent.

Andromeda, chained to the rock.

Andromeda, staring Death in the face.

“No?” Lando smiled kindly at her, reached over and placed a hand on her thin arm. “Never? From what I hear you had quite the list of candidates - Ben Solo, Tommy Calhan, Poe Dameron.”

“Poe Dameron?” Rey tilted her chin up and stared in confusion. “Sorry, I - I had to use the restroom - did I … did I miss something?” She giggled and ducked her head when the audience broke into titters. Rey peeked up at Lando through her hair. Poe’s heart pounded in his chest.

“Why, my dear - your District partner told us all about how you ensnared the heart of our favorite Victor!” Lando leaned in and winked. “No need to be modest!”

“I didn’t know.” Rey blinked and frowned. “I don’t think that could be true, I mean: we’ve been friends since we were kids, but…” She shrugged and smiled. “Poe loves the Capitol. He spends most of his time there. Why would he waste his time on a little nobody like me?”

Rey Kenobi was the smartest person he’d ever known. _How could he forget that_?

She smiled blandly, not a dimple in sight, and waited for the audience to stop shouting denials of her claim at her. Poe fought the urge to bury his face in his knees, to slide to the floor and curl up into the ball.

Instead, he looked into the camera that he knew was there and shrugged with a roll of his eyes and a wave of his hand, as if to say _I told you so._

“I don’t think anyone here thinks you’re a nobody, Rey.” Lando gestured at her grandly. “I mean - look at you!” The audience screamed and applauded, and Rey smiled until her face fell. “Oh?”

“No, it’s just…” Rey trailed off, began to weave a braid in her hair as though unaware she was doing it. “It’s been so...it’s hard, still, to hear Tommy’s name.” A long pause, but the audience was deathly silent, hanging onto her words as she batted her false eyelashes, her fingers stilling in her hair. “I never thought I’d care about anyone, and then…”

“You met Ben Solo?” Lando prompted gently, and Rey looked at her lap, her cheeks flushing in a way that no one in the Capitol could ever replicate with chemical or makeup.

Poe watched, breathless, as Rey gripped the conversation by the neck and steered it far, far away from the mention of his name.

“We should have had more time,” Rey choked out then, angrily. “We - Tommy was so _young,_ and I wouldn’t even let him kiss me because he told me was going to volunteer.” She curled in on herself, away from the cameras. “He was so proud to volunteer.”

“He was a very brave young man,” Lando said, holding his hand to Rey. She took it after a moment, and turned back around to face the camera, the crowd.

“And now, I’m going in, and...and I’ve met all these lovely people who I never would have met before, and - and Ben.”

“And Ben.”

Poe could hear people audibly weeping behind him, but his stomach clenched violently again.

Rey was, perhaps, too smart for the Games. _Stop while you’re ahead,_ he wanted to beg her. _Please._

She did seem to be finished now, and she and Lando spoke quietly about her childhood and her beloved grandfather until the time ran out.

Later, Poe wouldn’t be able to recall a single detail about the next twenty interviews.

***

Poe grabbed Sandy by the elbow as they got off the lift, yanking him in to their rooms roughly.

“Hey!” Sandy pushed at him, but Poe didn’t relent.

“What fuck was that?”

“Poe, _stop it_!” Rey looked at him horrified, but Poe was past worrying that Rey would see what he really was.

“We didn’t fucking tell you to say that!” Poe shook Sandy roughly, and the kid sneered up at him.

“You didn’t fucking tell me to say anything!” Sandy said, his face blotchy in anger. “You just - you just want me to roll over and _die._ Well, fuck you!”

“Aleksander,” Maz scolded gently, a withered hand coming out to rest on his shoulder. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Sandy choked and started to sob, but Poe didn’t release him. He felt nothing but a single-minded fury, and he considered pulling every potential sponsor from this uncooperative, nasty, selfish -

“He’s a child.” Rey’s hand was on his chest, pushing him backward. “He’s - Poe, leave him alone.” She wrapped her arms around Sandy’s small shoulders, and the boy continued to cry, his hands shoving at Rey at first. Eventually, he collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and he sobbed bitterly into her gown, staining it dark blue and black.

“You wanted to fuck me over?” Poe dragged a hand through his hair and slammed his fist into the wall. “Huh? Wanted to make me look - _carajo_ . All you did was fuck _her_ over, you stupid piece of-”

“He’s a child,” Rey repeated firmly, a hand coming to brace against the side of Sandy’s face. “He didn’t know.”

“Didn’t kn-know w-what?” Sandy hiccuped miserably.

“They’ll hate her now,” Poe whispered, wiping a hand down his face. The anger bled out of him as he said it aloud. “They’ll hate her. Or worse.”

“Or worse...w-what?” Sandy blinked up at Rey, who only shook her head and held him tighter, his face pressed up against her ribcage.

“She’s right.” Poe grabbed the wine bottle that he’d hidden in the ficus nearest the door, after Rey had begged him to stop drinking when he was ‘home,’ as if anywhere in this multicolored wasteland could be home, and shook his head in disgust. “You are just a kid.”

“Don’t you dare.” Rey scowled at him from over Sandy’s head. “Put that down, right now.”

He wanted to say something petulant, but all that came out was a sob; Maz took the bottle from him and walked deeper into the suite with it, and Poe crumbled.

“What did you mean?” Sandy repeated. “They’ll hate her or...or worse.”

Poe looked up blearily and licked the saltwater off his lip. Rey gazed at him, reproachful but tender all at the same time. She nodded, imperceptibly.

“D’you know how I come back in the morning, sometimes?”

***

Sandy accepted the low-grade sleeping pill Poe offered him an hour later, so he could get some real rest. Maz stroked his hair as he drifted off, and Rey had curled up at the foot of the bed into a ball. It all made Poe feel terribly fond from where he stood in the doorway.

“Poe?” Sandy looked over at him, eyelids drooping.

“Yeah, kid?”

“I’m sorry.” Sandy burrowed his head into the pillow. “I - I didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry that you know now,” Poe responded truthfully. “I’m sorry for all of this.”

“Not your fault.” Sandy pulled the covers to his chin. “Any of it.”

Poe walked away before he said something he’d regret. Behind him, he could hear Sandy apologizing to Rey until the pills won out.

***

There was a knock at his door fifteen minutes after he left the tributes’ side of the floor. At least they hadn’t made him stay at the Victor’s rooms, with its easy access and constant flow of VIPs.

“Come in.” It was either Maz or Rey. No one from the Capitol knocked.

The door opened, and Rey slipped in, dressed in the soft pajamas all the tributes received; short sleeved shirt, buttons in the front, pants to the mid-calf, all in silver silk. Most tributes looked like children wearing them, a potent, tragic reminder of their reality.

Rey Kenobi just looked like moonlight.

“I’m sorry.” Poe hadn’t sat down yet, had frozen after taking off his shirt. The cold metal of his mother’s ring sat uncomfortably against his chest, as did the weight of Rey’s gaze on him. “I don’t know what came over me.” He sagged further. “Or maybe I do. I just - tomorrow -”

“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow.” Rey closed the door behind her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. The dark waves tumbled down her back - Poe remembered fighting with Karé over whether or not they should cut it. In the arena, it would be a way to make her an easy target, a potential hazard to her ability to run or fight.

But here, all it did was remind Poe of home. Which was more dangerous was anyone’s guess.

“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow, or, or the Games, or what Sandy said, or Ben Solo.” Rey looked at him sadly when she reached him, having crossed the floor in less than five graceful strides. “I just want…”

“What do you want, Sunshine?” Poe had asked a similar question many times, too many times to count, in the Capitol. This was the first time he really wanted to hear the answer.

“I just want you to hold me.” Rey crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at the floor. “I just want to be with you.”

He understood. It was all he’d ever wanted, too.

***

“I want you to have it.” They were lying side by side on the bed now, a brief silence having descended over them as they waited for dawn and what it would bring. Poe held the silver ring out to Rey, the empty necklace lying on the bed beside him. “In the arena.”

“What if-” Rey’s teeth worried at her bottom lip, her eyes wells of uncertainty, looking too much like the water under his boat, too much like home. “It’s your mother’s, Poe, and it’s supposed to go to-”

“You.” Poe slipped it into the palm of her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips. He brushed a kiss over the skin there, unable to look up for the time being. “It’s supposed to go to you, Sunshine”

Rey put the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, and neither of them commented on it.

Poe spent a long time studying the way the ring looked on Rey Kenobi’s hand, and only once in that time did the singular thought roaring through his head make it to his lips:

“Come back to me.”

She didn’t answer.

***

Time edged on, towards the dawn, no matter how much Poe wanted to stop it.

***

‘Poe, I-” She shifted towards him, across the silk sheets that felt too much like a prison, and Poe shook his head, his hand tightening for the briefest moment on the sharp bone of her hip.

“I know.” He half-smiled at her, feeling about a hundred years old. Poe’s eyes darted to the corner of the room, his head tilted towards it for the briefest of moments. _They might be watching,_ he said with the gesture, and Rey bit her bottom lip, nodded, disappointment and grief and rage flashing in her eyes. “And for what it’s worth…” He trailed off purposely, and Rey leaned in until her head rested on his chest.

“It’s worth everything.” Whispered, too quiet for a typical camera to pick up on, but it made Poe’s throat burn and eyes close. He wished then for a boat, for the open water, the sea his mother disappeared on.

He’d give everything to disappear with Rey, out on the water, to sail until they sunk into the horizon, swallowed whole and welcomed home to where they could be more than what they were allowed here.

But his father still lived in District Four, waiting with his eyes on that horizon for his son to return; Rey’s grandfather sat in a shanty too close to a forest that so often caught on fire. A farmer, and a fisher - dangerous professions to be in when your loved ones were snared in the Capitol’s net.

As he thought of his father, and the sea, Rey’s hand crept to the front of his shirt, tangling in the soft fabric as she lifted her eyes to his. Poe knew it was a mistake, but he found he didn’t care at that exact moment. She’d be in the arena, in six hours, reachable only through sponsorships that he’d have to work for.

It brought bile to his throat, even as Rey leaned in for a kiss. Poe pulled away, too distraught now to sully something so pure, and Rey’s eyes swam with the imagined rejection.

“No.” Poe shook his head, mouthed the word, his hand gripping her hip hard enough to hurt now. “ _Rey._ ” He swallowed and leaned in for her this time, and her lips brushed over his tentatively.

The kiss drifted too quickly to something that could ignite, and Poe was unable to pull out of the dive; Rey kissed him eagerly, with the same enthusiasm she’d shown on the boat, when the waves rocked underneath them gently, almost mocking them with the future they couldn’t have. Poe kissed her back, with an edge of desperation he prayed she was too inexperienced to note, praying that she mistook the way he held her for passion, and not for the brutal fear it was.

Rey shifted until she almost knelt on the bed, Poe moving to meet her - she tilted forward until she pressed her body against his, and she hummed happily in her throat as his hands drifted along her sides.

His calves brushed along the silk, a painful sensory memory of too many nights spent in rooms just like this, and Poe jerked his chin back right as Rey trailed her lips over his jaw.

_Pretty boy - good boy - the Capitol loves you - all mine - my dear boy -_

The sheets were wrong.

Poe fought the urge to cry, even as Rey obliviously dropped innocent kisses along his neck, her hands curled sweetly against his chest as she worked.

This should be happening in a home tucked away at the end of a dock, under a roof he built, the slats letting in only the smallest traces of ocean spray. Rey’s mouth should move along his collarbone in a bed made of pinewood, in a room they’d chosen together. This should be happening on sheets scratchy like burlap, as he rolled Rey onto her back and kissed her and held her and loved her the way a man should be able to.

The sheets were wrong. The city was wrong. This whole fucking place was wrong, and in that moment, Poe had no doubt that it had sunk deep into his bones, burying itself in him like a shipwreck, this wrongness; and he was frozen by a sudden and unshakeable fear that if he looked to where his hands had touched Rey in the moonlight, he’d see an inky blackness staining her freckled skin, marks and memories of what he’d done and seen and suffered permanently etched into her body.

“Poe?” Rey had noticed the silent tears that coursed from his eyes then, and despite his years of training, Poe couldn’t begin to hide this pain. He shook his head, and Rey’s hands patted anxiously at the trails betraying him on his cheeks. “Should I stop?”

“Yes.” Rey flinched and moved away, but he caught her by the waist. “Don’t leave. Please.”

“I - did I hurt you?”

“No.” Poe said. He shook his head, trying to find the words. “I … I want to hold you. Please.” _I’m selfish, and so, so scared._ “Don’t leave.”

“I won’t leave.” Rey curled up against his side, and Poe shifted so he could face her. They lay on their sides, hands twined together, and Rey kissed his fingers. She shouldn’t have been comforting him, he should be stronger than this, he should be -

“When you get out,” Poe promised softly, after fifteen minutes of silence, his body no longer trembling from silent sobs. Rey looked to him then, her own eyes now swollen and red. “I...we’ll figure something out. We’ll be together. In District Four.”

“In District Four,” Rey whispered. Her eyes were distant, and Poe wondered if she believed it.  “What do you miss most about it? About home?”

The distraction worked, even though he knew it for a distraction. “The smell of the ocean.” He trailed his foot against hers, staring down at the sliver of skin exposed by her sleep-shirt, a tiny, pale canvas between hem and pants. “Being out on my boat. My dog. My dad.”

“I always liked Kes.” Rey squeezed his hand softly, “And your dog’s a real piece of work.” Poe smiled genuinely, perhaps his first genuine smile in the Capitol since he was fifteen and too stupid to know better.

“What do you miss most about home?”

There was a long pause, and Rey cleared her throat. “I miss Obi.” Poe worried, not for the first time, how the old man was getting along in their absence, even with Kes there. “But…”

“But what?” Poe rubbed his nose against hers when she didn’t continue, and her hazel eyes swept over him, intense and unblinking.

“But … the thing I’d miss most, other than Obi...well. He’s here with me.” Rey’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away from him. Poe kissed her, desperately again because _fuck him,_ and Rey let him. She let him cry into it, and held him tightly in return, her thin fingers pressing into his back.

They held each other, sometimes trading stories (often stories that both of them knew, which made them all the sweeter), but usually remaining silent, as the moonlight shifted over them, and the hours moved cruelly past, like ships floating by.

Rey fell asleep, perhaps three hours til sunrise, and although Poe missed her eyes and her smile and her laugh, he knew she needed the rest. She needed _more_ rest, but then again, they’d just hit her with a stim before she went in, just like they did to him and every other terrified tribute dropped in that hellhole.

Sluggish tributes made for bad entertainment.

While she slept, Poe forced himself to relax in a bed that was mostly a prison, but was beginning to feel … almost real in her presence. Rey smiled in her sleep, a sweet, happy smile that didn’t match the circles under her eyes, or hide the way her cheekbones stood out (how had she _lost_ weight since coming to the Capitol? She should be eating better than ever). Poe imagined a future for them, soft and forgiving - forgiving of him, of course, because what had she done, besides choose the wrong person - his eyes drifting shut at times when he wanted to hold a particular image closer to his heart.

But, he never fell asleep, too desperate to bask in the warmth that seemed to emanate from Rey at all times, like the most gentle of sunshine playing across the shore.

Rey woke an hour before sunrise, and Poe felt guilty, as though he’d willed her awake, but she smiled at him and made it feel just a little bit better. When she put her hand on the side of his face delicately, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and turned his head to kiss the metal shining on her hand.

She cried, once or twice, and Poe kissed every tear away, leaving his hands in her hair and his forehead pressed to hers as he fought against his own tears. She sat up, her knees to her chest and her arms around her knees; without speaking, Poe began to braid her hair, kissing her shoulders here and there as he worked.

When he finished, Rey lay back down, pulling him down with her until he lay almost on top of her. Poe studied her face, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone as he struggled against everything fighting inside of him.

“We’ll have to leave soon,” Poe muttered, and Rey nodded, licking her bottom lip nervously. It became all too much, suddenly. “Fuck - _fuck it._ I love you.”

Rey stared at him in shock, her freckles standing out against her blush, and Poe hated himself for giving what was left of himself - too little, too broken - to her, right before they had to go.

Poe meant to apologize, then, but Rey laid a thin finger across his lips and shook her head. “I love you too.” He smiled against her finger, disbelief swarming him. It might have just been a kindness on her part, but Poe knew Rey Kenobi too well. She had no need for superfluous kindness, saw no point to empty words. She meant what she said, and she rarely said anything at all, so it _must_ be true.

“Come back to me.” Poe kissed her, their limbs tangling together as he pressed her into the mattress even though they couldn’t have had more than ten minutes left at this point. “Promise me.”

Rey shook her head, and he felt her tears against his cheek, or maybe they were his.

“ _Please._ ” His voice broke, shattered, between them, and Rey’s breath caught as she tangled her fingers in his hair. “Come back.”

“Okay.” Rey relented, most likely her final, most hardwon kindness of the night. “I will. For you.”

“I love you,” he groaned, holding her as tightly as possible. Rey hiccuped and nodded and murmured it back.

The door hissed open, and Poe refused to release her. Instead, he glared up at the newcomer through the disheveled curls hanging in his eyes.

Mitaka stared at him in disapproval, not shock, and Poe scowled. “We’ll be right out,” he snapped at the Capitol’s minion.

“They’re in here,” Mitaka called out dispassionately, and Poe stiffened. Rey did as well underneath him, and she pushed against his chest, trying to push him behind her. It didn’t work very well, as Poe moved to block her from the sight of the door.

Several Peacekeepers swept into the room.

“We’re not doing anything wrong.” Rey spoke up bravely, her hand tight on Poe’s arm, still trying to push him to the side.

“It is time to go.” The Peacekeeper in the front pulled out electrified manacles and snapped them open. Poe stared at them in shock, his stomach churning weakly. Rey tugged on him anxiously, but he didn’t look down.

“Fine.” He started to move off of Rey, his hands raised. “There’s no need for that. I’ll come quietly.”

“Not you.” The Peacekeeper tried to shove him out of the way, and Poe realized almost too late what he was doing.

“Get the fuck away from her” - he shoved the Peacekeeper viciously as Rey shrieked and scrambled up the bed, away from the man - “Get away- _don’t_ _touch her_!”

The other two Peacekeepers marched forward and grabbed him, despite his efforts to knock their hands out of the way. Poe shouted and fought back, but they knocked him to the bed and held him down.

“Rey!” Poe screamed brokenly, kicking at the Peacekeepers as Rey dove away from the one who’d spoken first. “Please - _why are you doing this_?” Distantly, Poe recognized the hollowness of the question. He knew why.

It was his fault.

“Poe!” Rey tried to strike the man holding Poe’s arms, but it left her back unprotected. He screamed in pain and fury as she was seized around the middle and hauled back, off the bed.

“Rey!” _REY_!” Poe fought desperately to break their hold on him, but he couldn’t, not when another Peacekeeper walked into the room with a deliberate slowness and helped hold him down. Terror and confusion and grief tore at him, making it hard to focus as Rey screamed for him. No matter how strong she was, she was half the size of the Peacekeeper holding her - as they neared the door, though, she gripped the doorframe and screamed one last time, feral and incensed, her fist almost catching the man on the jaw.

One last Peacekeeper appeared though, syringe in hand; Poe bellowed as the needle disappeared into Rey’s neck, sobbing and still fighting as he watched her eyes close, and her body went limp.

“ _Rey-_ ”

He heard his front door open and close, and she was gone. Poe sobbed, collapsed against the bed, and the Peacekeepers stood and exited the room in a disturbing display of synchronization.

Poe sensed he wasn’t alone in the room, alone in his humiliation and shame and terror.

He looked to the left and saw President Snoke staring at him, his withered hands clasped in front of his body.

“You” - Poe staggered to his feet, no doubt looking deranged, his face swollen from crying, his body bruised from the struggle, his eyes wild - “You sick bastard. I’ll _kill_ you.”

It was a poor decision, Poe knew, to threaten the president.

Snoke’s aloof expression didn’t change in the least.

“Do clean yourself up, Mr. Dameron.” He turned to leave, but looked over his shoulder at the last second, the red of his gums staining his teeth. “I think your sweetheart will need you looking your best for your _friends_ today.”

Poe stood there, frozen in shock and rage, as he heard his doors open and close for the last time that morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!! 
> 
> Oh gosh.
> 
>  
> 
> This is 10,500 words, so I obviously needed to break before Rey's Games.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it?! I know it's very dark and not everyone's cup of tea, but this is the easiest it's been to write in a while, so I'll probably....keep going until you guys get bored. Your support means a lot, so thank you for reading <3 and thank you to everyone who's been commenting. That's probably the only reason why I had the energy to update again so quickly


	5. The 49th Annual Hunger Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's games begin, and Poe is forced to watch her struggle to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!
> 
> WARNINGS: Poe continues to use sex as a means to collect information. It is stated directly that he is bought/sold. Implied sexual encounters where he had no agency (i.e. was traded)
> 
> WARNING: Extreme/graphic violence and death of multiple characters.

Poe stumbled into the control room, half-blind and exhausted.

The Games had started three hours ago.

He wiped his mouth, the tacky slime of lipstick that wasn’t his coming away with every pass, and shivered in the controlled air of the monitor room.

“Poe?” Finn Storm knelt down - _why was he kneeling?_ Poe squinted at him, his head pressed to the doorframe.

A Peacekeeper stood over Finn’s shoulder, gun in hand. Poe’s eyes tripped over the man, and returned to the worried face of Finn. A friendly face.

 _“Is she alive_?” The words cracked, fell from his mouth, forcing the hole in his chest open even more.

Finn’s hand reached out slowly and grasped Poe’s shoulder; bile heaved in his throat because Finn looked _too_ kind, _too_ scared, _too_ tired, and -

“She’s alive.”

Not for the first time, Poe Dameron wept openly for an audience on a cold marble floor in the Capitol.

***

Nine had died at the Cornucopia.

Well. Eight.

Mich Condux had fallen off his plate before the countdown had finished; Poe would later learn that he’d been positioned directly to the right of Rey. He would learn that she turned and sprinted from the Cornucopia, not even stopping to see the location of Sandy or Ben or any of the Allies people had assumed she would take.

Rey Kenobi ran, and eight children died in the sand behind her.

Both tributes from Seven, and Volt, a small boy from Five, had been felled within seconds by the Careers; the tributes from Nine were close behind after they got distracted by a fight over a backpack, the kills claimed by the female tribute from Ten, right before she’d taken Hux’s axe to the gut. Her name had been Prudence, and Poe remembered the soft little dimple in her chin that deepened when she smiled.

Her district partner, Addam, was injured, but managed to escape clutching a canteen and a rations pack. A laceration deep enough to see bone in his shoulder, and all for food and water.

Poe felt sick as he watched the recap.

Chewie’s male tribute, Olive, had taken an arrow in the melee and bled out fairly quickly. Clover tried to help him, but he squeezed her hand and told her to run. She managed to grab a tarp and a spear before vanishing from sight.

Oddly enough, there was one moment not played back in the nightly recap, a moment that Finn shared with Poe in a voice no louder than a whisper as they hung back at the edge of the monitor room -

\- Paige Tico had taken Aleksander Martin by the hand and tugged him away from the fight, a backpack over her shoulder, and a grim set to her jaw. “ _Come with me_ ,” she’d whispered, her silver necklace glinting in the sun. “ _I need your help._ ”

Sandy had gone with her.

And neither of them appeared in the night sky.

***

For the 49th Annual Hunger games, the arena was a desert.

Vast, sprawling, hot - the sun hung mercilessly overhead, and there was no water or plant life as far as the eye could see.

The only shade came from half-sunk wreckage of ships that weren’t quite ships; the relics of a past age dotted the landscape here and there, forming halfway points between the rolling dunes that were pushed and pulled by the wind slowly throughout the day. When the tributes emerged the morning after the Cornucopia, the entire terrain had shifted.

To the east, Armitage Hux, Ben Solo, Gwenmere Phasma, and Bazine Netal cleaned their weapons and sat in the limited shade provided by some ancient, rotting ship from the Dark Days.

Some four miles north, Sandy Martin and Paige Tico continued to trek across the sand, Paige’s brow furrowed, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Sandy’s eyes were fixed on the older girl.

In the west, Rey Kenobi of District Four stood under an odd metal structure that looked like a house on legs. She placed a hand on the belly of the ship, her eyes staring into the distance, seeing everything and nothing. A sharp wind rose, dragging sand particles with it, spinning around the thin girl, causing the loose, tan tunic she wore to flap around her frame, hair falling out of her braid and into her eyes, which were now the color of the desert she was drowning in.

***

It couldn’t be more clear:

This arena was no place for a girl who’d been given to Poe Dameron by the sea.

***

“I’m sorry,” Karé Kun whispered to him, an hour after sundown on the first day. She settled next to him on the plush couch provided for Mentors and Stylists, to provide them comfort as their tributes died and murdered and lost in the arena.

“Sorry for what?” Poe was stone cold sober now, his nerves flayed raw by the events of the day - losing Rey, the Games beginning, the things he’d seen and done with the Capitol’s finest.

Karé sighed before slowly taking his hand and pulling it toward her; after looking around surreptitiously, eyeing the Peacekeepers in the room, she pressed something cold and circular into his palm, folding his fingers over it.

Poe brought his hand close to his middle and opened his fingers slowly. His mother’s ring sat, polished and shining and perfect, against the once-calloused skin of his hand. The question died in his throat, but Karé answered it.

“They told her she couldn’t keep it.” Karé stared at the screen, and Poe jerked his head in some form of acknowledgement that he’d heard. It was the best he could do with the world being pulled down on top of him. “Said it would...confuse viewers.”

“All tributes are allowed tokens,” Poe argued hoarsely, and Karé smiled sadly at him. “So what did she get to bring with her?”

Karé didn’t have an answer to that, but Poe did.

It was something that Rey Kenobi couldn’t shake. She’d brought her curse with her into the arena.

She brought his heart with her, and at the moment, it was the thing most likely to kill her.

***

Right after the sun rose for the first time in the arena, the tribute from Six attacked Rey.

Poe, not slated for any clients that day, shouted in terror, waking a few of the Mentors that had dozed off in the pre-dawn hours.

“You okay?” Finn blinked and sat up, then blanched at what he saw on the screen. “Oh - _Force_.”

The Capitol curse sounded wrong in his accent, but it helped ground Poe for a second, remind him of he was supposed to act right now. An aloof, but invested Mentor. Not a concerned lover.

And concerned he was - the girl from Six, Troila, maybe, wrapped her hands around Rey’s throat and squeezed. Her face turned an alarming shade of red, but Troila’s hands weren’t strong enough, and Rey managed to dig her nails into the side of the girl’s face.

The announcer, Tyrannus Dooku, sounded delighted as he commented on the match.

“It’ll be exciting to see if Kenobi’s high score finally pays off,” he drawled, the voiceover a chilling counterpart to the struggle on screen, and Poe’s fingernails tore through the upholstery on the sofa. Finn gripped his arm and shook his head.

Rey eventually kicked Troila in the stomach, sending her flying, and staggered to her feet. The wind picked up again, and shockingly, a wall of flying sand and dirt appeared a thousand feet away from the girls. Rey set her jaw and stared at the approaching maelstrom, Troila at her feet.

“Let’s see if Kenobi brings our numbers down to 14!” Dooku simpered excitedly.

With a vicious kick to Troila’s chest, Rey turned and sprinted from the storm.

***

“She clearly decided that sand storm was a more pressing issue,” Lando said with a lazy flick of his wrist. His cape was cobalt blue today, and spread out luxuriously over the back of the velvet loveseat he was sprawled out on.

“I just don’t see much of a Victor’s instinct in her,” Thrawn, one of the most popular and repeated Gamemaker’s in history said with a huff, examining his fingernails. “Rather pathetic, if you asked me.”

“I wouldn’t count her out just yet,” Lando’s typically well-managed expression slipped, and he frowned, although later, he would giggle and blame it on post-lunch indigestion. “She’s a fighter.”

“Let’s hope so.”

***

Rey’s neck was bruised, and Poe spent thirty minutes on the phone with Weela Everworth, the wealthiest patron north of 35th, to send her some salve.

When the parachute landed at her feet, Rey picked it up slowly, disbelievingly. When she opened it and saw what was inside, Rey scoffed.

“It’s just bruises,” she muttered hoarsely, just loud enough for the cameras to pick up on, probably tearing like sandpaper against the damage. Rey threw her head back and glared at the sky. “Don’t worry about me.”

To most watching, it felt like a stubborn declaration of her will to live.

To Poe, though, it sounded like a warning.

He didn’t care though. He’d sacrifice any amount of his dignity if it eased her pain; and, sure enough, she dipped two fingers into the salve and then wiped it along the worst of the finger-shaped bruises on the delicate column of her throat.

They faded five minutes later.

***

Around the sixteenth hour of the second day in the arena, Poe watched Rey tilt her head and frown at a distant noise.

“Ignore it,” he whispered, the sounds not leaving his mouth. “Ignore it.”

Rey grabbed the staff she’d fashioned from part of the boat she hid under, and ran.

She was just as fast as she’d always been on the schoolyard; little plumes of sand kicked up behind her as she moved up and over a dune. Her feet faltered only when she saw what was before her:

A muttation, half dog and half snake, snarling and ripping at tiny Jaku, who sobbed and held his hand out to his sister.

“Ignore it,” Poe whispered.

***

Every summer, the loggerheads nested on the beaches of District Four. Their tracks could be found for miles along the stretches of sand, piles of eggs buried where no predator could find them.

Every fall, the loggerhead babies hatched and began their treacherous march to the sea. Gulls and crabs watched hungrily from above, and the residents of District Four would often pause in their work, out in the surf or on the shore, to encourage the hatchlings while they trundled to safety. But, when they were inevitably snatched up as dinner, the people of District Four understood that nature moved onward, and so should they; they’d return to their work without a second glance at the hatchlings that braved the wide world so soon. Too soon.

The September that Poe came back from the Games, he saw Rey Kenobi out on the sand, standing with her eyes fixed to the ground. It was late morning, and most of District Four was enjoying their assigned day of rest.

Poe sat on his boat and watched Rey Kenobi stand guard as a lonely hatchling struggled through the sand to the sea. It wouldn’t make it, he thought - too small, its brethren already disappeared from sight. It wasn’t meant to make it.

It would have been a mercy if a gull had caught it.

But Rey Kenobi stood and watched the turtle inch its way to the sea, to the waves that welcomed it home; she stood and watched until the ocean took it back, going so far as to shoo away the birds that flapped overhead with an impatient, irritated hand.

Poe sat on his boat and thought that maybe Rey Kenobi was the smartest person he’d ever met, but she still didn’t understand death.

***

Poe dragged his hands through his hair, whispered, “What the _fuck_.”

Finn Storm stood next to him, gripping the chair he’d abandoned when the muttations had jumped from the dunes, lunging for the twins. “I thought you said your girl was smart?”

Poe buried his face in his hands and didn’t answer.

***

Ben Solo walked away from his district partner, Hux, and Phasma by the fourteenth hour of the second day.

“Good luck, lover boy!” Hux hollered at his back, and Ben shot a rude hand gesture over his shoulder.

To anyone watching, they looked like a group of carefree teenagers wiling away the afternoon, like the ones post-Reaping age that Poe saw loitering on the beach of Four sometimes.

To Poe though, they looked like Syclla and Charybdis, Polyphemus and the Laestrygonians. They looked like the monsters that would keep Rey from returning home.

***

As the moon rose overhead, Rey washed the bite marks on her arm with a cold look of disinterest - her detachment from pain, though impressive, would do very little to win her points back from sponsors, at this point, Poe thought privately. Then, she turned and took the bandage Nimaa was trying to place on her brother, but couldn’t because her small hands were shaking too badly.

“I got it,” Rey murmured, winding the cloth around Jaku’s side. “There you go.”

Jaku fell into an uneasy doze ten minutes later, and Nimaa huddled into Rey’s side. They’d picked a decent place to make camp - they could see in all directions from the top of the odd metal structure that looked like an old boat.

“Rey?” Nimaa whispered into the dark. “Why did you save us?”

 _Yeah, Rey,_ Poe thought bitterly. _Why did you_?

“Because,” Rey whispered back. “It was the right thing to do.”

For the first time, he fully believed that Rey Kenobi would die in that arena.

And when she did, what was left of Poe Dameron would die with her.

***

“She’s very pretty,” Evely Sucklebee purred, dragging her neon talons through Poe’s curls before letting one, dangerous claw slide along his cheek.

He swallowed. “Not as pretty as you, honey.” Poe bit the offered finger playfully, batting his lashes. “But. I’m getting _bored_ of being the only young Victor from Four. One and Two have plenty - why can’t we?”

“Getting tired of little old Maz?” Evely grinned, delighted. “She never was any fun.”

“Nope.” The lie burned like acid in his throat. “But I don’t wanna talk about her anymore.”

***

After, he smoothed a hand through his hair and winked at Evely. “Have I changed your mind?”

“You did very well.” She patted his cheek lazily from where she perched up on the pillows, her curvaceous hips still spread against the soaked sheets that cost more than what a wealthier family from Four would make in a year. Poe passed her a glass of champagne and pretended to drink his own.

He needed to be sober to do this.

Poe hadn’t been sober with a client for months.

“But” - Poe forced himself to keep smiling widely as Evely pouted - “She’s so confusing, my darling boy. Why did she save those children?”

_Why did she?_

“Rey Kenobi always was soft,” Poe explained, through his teeth. Cross your fingers, hope to die. “A little...addled, even.” Some people _had_ said that, of course, enough people to corroborate the rumor he was planting, people who whispered behind their hands about the Kenobi girl, who stared into the distance sometimes like she could see clear to the end of all this. “She was always too into her head. Very bookish. Very boring.”

 _I’m sorry,_ he whispered to the universe for the lie. _I’m sorry._

“Then why did she ever catch your eye?” Evely purred. She dragged her foot along Poe’s arm, the talons there catching on his skin hard enough to make him bleed. Her forked tongue flickered out as her pupils widened unnaturally with delight.

They always did like to draw blood.

Poe sighed. “She was very _cute_ , I suppose. But, I came to the Capitol, and” - he spread his hands wide - “How could I spend time with the little lost girl from Four who swims for hours every morning when the _Capitol_ is here?” He dropped his voice and trailed his hand along Evely’s pink leg. “When _you’re_ here.”

All he could focus on was that Evely Sucklebee had no freckles, anywhere on her legs.

***

“Where is she?” Ben Solo was recorded saying that night, his hand wrapped around the throat of Troila, pinning her to the side of a metal structure.

“Who?” Troila gasped, her eyes turning bloodshot from the lack of oxygen. “I - I -”

“The girl from Four,” Ben barked, throwing the other child to the ground. The projected moon glinted down on him, casting a soft glow to his waves of obsidian hair. “Where did she go after you _attacked_ her?”

“There.” Troila pointed desperately, over the dunes to the west. “Th-there.” She scrabbled for her spear with her other hand, but Ben Solo was faster, his blade a flash of silver in his hand.

“I’m coming for you, wildcat.” He walked quickly east as Troila’s blood cooled in the sand behind him.

***

In the living rooms and watch parties and palaces of the Capitol, people swooned and sighed as Ben Solo stormed through the night, nearing the place where two children huddled up against their protector for warmth.

“They could be like a family,” Poe Dameron noted, sitting on the plush couch, shaped like a half-moon, wiping a smear of pink dust off his nose. He smiled dazedly, but his pupils didn’t change. “A little family, out in the desert.” He hummed to himself while accepting the lazy hands of everyone around him, and the whisper spread through the party.

By morning, it would be a roar, on every talk show and gossip rag still passed around on holoscreens.

***

On the third day, three more died:

Andronicus, Troila’s district partner, felled by the same kind of mutt that had tried to kill the twins from Eleven.

Addam from Ten, finally succumbed to the wound on his shoulder, the skin around it red and inflamed, oozing yellow in a way that had the cameras only focusing on his face as his cannon sounded.

Some kinds of suffering weren’t pretty, after all.

The girl from Five, Watt. Killed by Bazine Netal and her deadly, thin knife that made Poe close his eyes and breathe shallowly in through his nose, out through his mouth, in through his nose, out through his mouth - _eyes of gold, a soft smile, rain falling outside their shelter_ \- in through his nose -

Finn Storm took his hand and breathed with him. Rose Tico took his other hand and breathed with him, even when she should have been breathing for her sister.

It served as a reminder: kindness in the Capitol hurt worse than the other option.

***

Eleven remained when the sun rose on the fourth day.

***

“Tell me a story?” Jaku asked Rey groggily while she cooked the odd rations pack she’d stolen from Troila after kicking her away. The bread soaked up the small teaspoon of water, puffing up into a loaf, which Rey carefully divided into three, even though it was meant to be a single portion.

“What kind of story?” Rey asked, her finger stirring the protein powder into another cup of water. She passed the regular canteen to the twins and glared until they each took a large sip.

“A happy one,” Nimaa said, her head on her brother’s shoulder. They looked like birds in a nest, the little twins, their dark curls tangling together as they huddled up under their meager shade, their thin limbs stretched out in front of them on the sand.

“I don’t know many happy stories.” Rey smiled at them, and they smiled back, and for a moment, everything was okay.

“There was a man who went to war,” Rey began quietly, and the twins leaned in so they could hear her. Rey stared out over the dunes to the south, her brow furrowed slightly. “And even though he won, it would be a long time before he was allowed to go home. You see, there were many who wanted to keep him from his home, and his family…”

***

People in the Capitol cried, and speculation broke out to whether or not it was a true story, the story of a lost man who was so cruelly kept from his beloved wife by jealous and greedy forces, _that poor man._

In the monitor room, Poe Dameron chewed another stim-pack, while Rose Tico cat-napped on the sofa next to him, and Finn Storm slept on the floor in front of her: the three youngest Mentors, and in many ways, the most tired.

In the mansion at the center of the city, Snoke watched the girl from Four capture the audience’s heart once again with her quiet beauty and intelligence on one screen, and then watched the boy from One howl into the night sky when he lost her tracks once again, not realizing he was less than a quarter mile from her shelter. Picking up the golden phone to his right, the president placed a call. When the other line picked up, he smiled mirthlessly.

“Terex?”

***

“Who taught you that story?” Nimaa asked, tugging on the edge of Rey’s tunic when they went out on ‘patrol’ that afternoon, leaving Jaku behind to doze in relative safety at their shelter.

“Someone I loved very much,” Rey answered, shielding her eyes with her hand as she stared out into the distance.

“Loved?” Nimaa peered up into her face and frowned. “Why - _loved_? What happened?”

In their homes, the Capitol waited with bated breath to hear the answer - was this a story given to her by Tommy Calhan? Or another of the District Four beauty’s paramours?”

“I’ll never see them again.” That was as much of an answer as Rey would give, her hand tight on her staff, her jaw even tighter. Then, she held her free hand out to the small girl, who took it with a smile, her pale tunic flapping behind her like wings. “Come along, little duck.”

“...What’s a duck?”

***

“Tell me a story.” Poe reclined back on the soft pillows, his hair tousled perfectly, his lips kiss-swollen. He had a smile painted on, and it was the only thing he wore.

The man blushed and looked down, his fingers fidgeting in his lap. “I don’t know if I have a story that would interest you.”

The man was a Peacekeeper, but one who’d been put in vocational training for the profession after his parents died - that much Poe had already gleaned from the District Two native. He’d never been wealthy, Rulph, but the uniform had promised some kind of stability and financial support for his four younger siblings, three of whom were still Reaping age.

What went unspoken was _I did this so they wouldn’t take tesserae._ But Poe heard it anyway.

The young man had done _something_ to warrant a visit from the most famous person in the Capitol, and Poe had noticed that the transaction had been set up by none other than Galen Erso, a celebrated former Gamemaker whose daughter had been one of the most unpopular Victors since the Games’ inception.

Rulph was sweet - and there was a very clear reason why he was unmarried at twenty-one, a rarity in a population-obsessed District - and in another lifetime, Poe wouldn’t have minded just talking to him with not a single string attached: but, this wasn’t that lifetime.

So, he batted his eyelashes at the Peacekeeper, who looked young and scared and lost in the Capitol, against the garish lights and bright colors of the room, and smiled more charmingly, dragging his toes across Rulph’s bare thigh.

“I’m sure there’s something interesting in the life of a _Peacekeeper._ ” Finn was holding onto his mother’s ring tonight. Poe missed the weight of it against his chest, but he missed something else even more. “Besides. I like listening to you talk.”

“Well.” Rulph sighed and then lay down on the bed so his hair brushed Poe’s hip. Poe combed his fingers through the red waves, trying not to think they looked like blood against the man’s neck. “I’m only here because I saved Galen Erso’s life during a riot.”

“A riot?” Poe fought to keep his fingers relaxed. “That sounds scary, honey.”

“It was.” Rulph shrugged and pressed further into Poe’s side. “That feels nice.”

“I’m glad.” _Keep going._

“They’ve been happening more and more.” Rulph yawned softly, and Poe continued to stroke his hair. “In Eleven, Twelve, Eight - and Three, which is where I saved Erso.”

“Three?” Poe frowned and stared at the opposite wall, but he fixed his smile back in face when Rulph peeked up at him. “What was Erso doing in Three?”

_Too direct. He’ll know now that you want something._

Rulph was too relaxed, though. “No idea. Some meeting. Secret meeting, too. Erso tore up my report about the attempt on his life, and sent me here to...well, to meet you.” Rulph blushed and shook his head. “...You must think I’m pathetic.”

“What?”

Poe had been bought and sold so many times in the last three years by so many painted people of the Capitol - none had ever come close to voicing what Poe thought of them all.

Rulph smiled ruefully. “I’ve had a crush on you since you won the Games. I was really happy when you won. My parents had just died, and seeing you survive, it was…” Rulph shrugged and buried his face in the sheets, pulling away from Poe’s hand. “Fuck, that’s embarrassing.”

A real grin spread across Poe’s face at the non-Capitol curse word. “...A little embarrassing.” Rulph peeked up at him with a shy smile on his face. “But it’s sweet.” _You still accepted my body as a gift, so … maybe not that sweet._ He bit that remark back.

“Your voice sounded different just then.” The man’s eyelids were drooping though, as he neared sleep, a result of the alcohol he and Poe had drank, his tolerance obviously much lower.

“Did it, honey?” Poe kicked himself internally and slipped back into the plastic accent that was expected of him here.

“Mhm.” Rulph nodded, his eyes closing fully, leaving him vulnerable and exposed. “D’you think they’ll really let both of them win?”

He froze, his heart slamming in his chest suddenly. “...What did you say?”

His previous words, intended to start rumors, came back to taunt him: _They’re like a little family._ Isn’t this what he wanted? His game? To encourage the Capitol’s obsession with their love story if it meant getting Rey sponsors - _if it meant dooming her to life after the Games?_

One of Rulph’s blue eyes cracked open to peek at him. “You didn’t hear?” He yawned again, and the eye slipped shut once more. “It’s all any of them can talk about. I heard it the whole train ride here. There’s a rumor that they might let your girl and the boy from One win together. Capitol’s favorite couple. There’s even talk of a television show.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” Poe said neutrally, fighting the urge to sprint from the room, or worse, vomit. “And you said you had nothing interesting for me.”

Rulph smiled, and was still smiling when he fell asleep.

Poe stayed awake, and stared into the dark room, lost to his thoughts like a ship at sea.

***

Ben Solo neared his quarry at the beginning of the fifth day.

He spotted Rey Kenobi from the top of a dune, spotted her supervising the twins as they played a quiet game in the sand, looking every inch the children they were.

With a grin on his face, he sheathed his sword and began to jog down the dune, pleased to have finally found her - and the Capitol sat on the edge of their seats, waiting for the anticipated reunion.

Then, the ground rumbled -

Out from the dunes burst three massive, vicious worm mutts, with heads like rabid dogs: they slithered towards the three tributes, and one lifted its head and scented the air, its sightless eyes turning towards Ben Solo, who paled under his sunburn.

“Run!” Rey could be heard screaming. She picked up the male twin, and his sister was close on her heels as they sprinted from the mutts, heading to a ship in the distance that was half the size of a Capitol block.

“Rey!” Ben screamed, but it was lost under the shifting of sand, and with a shout, he pulled his sword free and fought off the worm that had caught his scent while the other two chased their prey.

***

The Capitol wept.

All four survived the attack, but Ben and Rey were cruelly separated once more.

***

Across the arena, similar mutts caught the two tributes from Eight, Rupert and Emilie, and Clover, Chewie’s last tribute. They ate away at them slowly, their screams echoing across the dunes, in haunting harmony to the howling wind.

No one in the Capitol wept.

But in Eight, a bomb went off under the Justice Building, and masked citizens swarmed the streets, holding torches aloft and holding back the outnumbered Peacekeepers.

***

Poe dreamed vividly that night.

***

_Poe sat on the stone bench outside Old Ben’s house and waited patiently, the spring sun soft overhead. He’d been waiting for what felt like forever, so a few more minutes wouldn’t bother him._

_In the distance, the sea sparkled, a near-perfect blue today, the kind of blue Maz always talked about, the way it looked before the fall of everything, before it all started to crumble. Now, most days, the water was a green-brown, a color that would be worrisome, if not for the way it matched a pair of eyes that had seen everything Poe Dameron was and loved him anyway._

_With a rustle of fabric, she settled onto the bench next to him, and Poe turned to see his favorite eyes in the world, today, alight with a joy he hadn’t seen in years._

_Rey Kenobi wore a fine net over her long, brown hair, and her dress was long and white. She’d made it herself, piece by piece from fabric she’d traded for down in the Market; pieces of it were from the old sail of Poe’s boat, where he’d first realized that he loved her. Blushing - silly to blush now, at this point, after all that had been done and all they had been through - Poe ducked his head, his hand going to the cap at the back of his head, pinned to his curls by his patient father that morning._

_“Everyone’s waiting,” Rey whispered, sounding as though she were speaking to him from the long end of the bay._

_“Let them wait.” Poe smiled at her when she took his hand and placed it in her lap, wrapping her long, delicate fingers around it and holding him in place. As though he needed that tether. Over on the nearest hill, he could see the net their families had woven together, the net they’d just stood under in front of their families and district, the net that would now hang in their home until death did they part and probably even after that._

_Death couldn’t stop Poe Dameron from loving Rey Kenobi. He’d learned that lesson many times over._

_Rey kissed him then, soft and sure and sweet as ever, her lips tasting like salt water. “I don’t want to wait,” she whispered, her hands tightening around his. “I love you.”_

_“I love you,” he answered, easy as breathing, and kissed her back, wondering if all of Rey Kenobi tasted like the sea. The thought prickled pleasantly against his spine, the thought that he could wonder things like that, and that he would soon have an answer._

_When they ended the kiss, both of them smiling warmly, Poe turned towards the party on the hill. He could see figures dancing, and he frowned, confused - Ben Kenobi danced with Tallie Lintra, who laughed and laughed, not a single scar in sight on her neck. Kes Dameron held Shara Bey in his arms, his face buried in his tiny wife’s shoulder; they swayed separate from the joyful music, slow, careful, and almost euphoric. Tommy Calhan stood at the side, his arm around Sandy Martin’s shoulders, and Willum Muran tapped his foot to the beat of the music while Maz Kanata’s head bobbed to the rhythm of the music. Ben Solo didn’t smile, but didn’t frown, just stood and watched the party with his hand on his sword._

_“Rey?” He turned to ask his bride a question, and then he stood with a shout of surprise._

_Rey’s hair was plastered to her head, wrapped around her shoulders, weighed down by the water that cascaded around her. Her gown was drenched, and water flowed like tears from her eyes and mouth when she tried to speak._

_She was drowning on dry land, and he was powerless to stop it._

_“Help!” Poe screamed, but the music only intensified, the dancing growing faster and faster, the sun flashing overhead in pulsating reds and blues and purples. “Someone, please, help!” He tried to hold Rey, and found that her skin was cold and wet, her eyes staring sightless over his shoulder._

_“A gift for the happy couple.” Poe, sobbing now, looked up from where he knelt at Rey’s feet to discover President Snoke, extending a snow white rose to him. “The Capitol loves you, my boy.”_

_Poe buried his face in Rey’s lap and wept even as she turned to water beneath his hands, until he couldn’t tell what were his tears, or Rey, or the sea._

***

Nine remained when the sun rose on the sixth day in the arena.

Poe and Rose held each other as they watched Rey brush up against Paige in the arena for the first time, right at sunrise.

In the early morning, while Jaku and Nimaa slept in a crevice of an ancient ship, hidden from view, Rey had returned to the Cornucopia to scavenge what was left - Paige had returned with Sandy to do something more confusing.

They were digging around the plates.

Rey looked at Paige, and Paige looked at Rey.

Sandy raised his hand in greeting, and Rey waved back before snagging a backpack, a tarp, and a set of knives. She turned and ran from the Cornucopia without even attempting to attack, and Paige and Sandy returned to their work.

Later, when Poe watched the edited footage, the scene didn’t appear.

***

What did make the cut was the fight between the Careers:

Bazine Netal spat in Hux’s face over a rude comment, forgetting that she had no district partner to protect her.

Within seconds, Hux had pulled his axe from the ground and was swinging it at the girl. Phasma watched, impassive and unimpressed, as the two circled each other, Hux’s face alight with cold fury, and Bazine assessing his every move.

Hux feinted right, Bazine dove to meet him to the left, and her speed matched well with his brute force. Phasma continued to watch.

Within five minutes, both tributes were bleeding, but Hux managed to trip Bazine, and with a horrifying lack of hesitation, he buried his axe in her chest. He left the blade buried there for a long second before pulling it out with a sickening noise, and a river of red flowed from Bazine’s mouth.

The cannon fired.

***

Across the arena, Rey Kenobi’s head jerked up at the sound of the cannon, but she settled again to return to tending the wounds of Jaku, who slipped further into his fever. “Please,” Rey whispered. “ _Please_.”

No parachute came.

***

Ben Solo also looked up at the cannon, and he swore under his breath, his pace picking up as he tracked the footprints that swiftly disappeared beneath him. He came to the crest of a dune, and for hours, the commentators and holoscreen personalities would discuss and analyze the way his shoulders relaxed, the way his breath left his body at the sight of Rey Kenobi, healthy and worried and tired, fussing over the dying boy from Eleven.

“Found you, wildcat.”

***

“Until the final two?” Phasma repeated, her hand extended in the space between them.

“The final two,” Hux agreed, shaking it. “District Two’s going to have a winner this year.”

Phasma nodded, not quite smiling, and both of them backed up slowly through the sand, their weapons strapped to their back. Hux snorted a laugh when they were fifty feet apart and then turned around with a sarcastic wave, shoving his hands into the side of his tunic; his pale shoulders burned red under the unforgiving sun, a painful sunburn that made even Phasma wince to see.

She turned around as well and walked quickly in the opposite direction.

She didn’t see the axe aimed for her back, spinning through the air with deadly accuracy.

***

Another cannon.

***

In the farthest corner of the arena, at the edge where the water was stored, the water that flowed through secret tunnels and passageways under the desert floor, two tributes stood at the lip of the dam.

“Do you think the others know about this?” Sandy asked, dipping his hand down to taste the cool water. They’d taken the better part of the day just to scale the massive front of the dam, and now they could see clear to the end of the arena.

They’d heard both cannons, and chose not to comment on it. Paige hadn’t even looked up from her work, unspooling the wire that had been oddly placed at the front of the Cornucopia, on her side, the one she’d risked her life to grab.

“I don’t think so,” Paige said carefully, laying down the last of the explosives they’d pulled from the ground around the plates. “Did you get enough to drink?”

Sandy nodded, his tan cheeks a healthier color now that he was beginning to rehydrate.

They filled their canteens up and began the perilous return journey down the side of the dam. It took an hour, and the camera panned away from them after a time, but returned when they reached the ground, after Paige had begun to set another explosive at the bottom of the dam, her nimble fingers flying through the wires inside it, setting the timer that couldn’t be seen by the camera due to its positioning within the explosive.

A tremor in the ground, and a horrible growl.

“Run.” Paige looked up at Sandy, who shook his head, his bronze curls flying.

“I won’t leave you.”

“You have to.” Mutts emerged on the horizon, barreling towards them, towards the dam, a few minutes away at best, but moving faster than either of them could.. “You have to run, Sandy.”

“I can’t.” He looked close to tears, and Paige smiled sadly up at him.

“I can hold them off, but only for a little bit.” She stood and pulled the final charge from her bag. “Please. Run.” She pulled her necklace over her head and passed it to the younger boy. “Take this.”

“A bird?” Sandy looked up at her with wide eyes.

“A starbird,” Paige corrected softly, her finger tracing the burnished metal. “My sister has a matching one. Keep it safe for me?”

***

In the Capitol, Rose Tico clutched her starbird, silent tears coursing down her face. Finn buried his face in his hands for a long moment before forcing himself to watch the screen. Paige deserved that much.

Poe turned away from the screen, his stomach roiling.

***

“I will.” Sandy nodded. “But - can’t you run with me?” He sounded very much his thirteen years, and the Capitol cried for him, even as District Three began to burn.

“No.” Paige smiled and shook her head. “I was never supposed to win this. But the spark can’t go out. It won’t.”

Sandy, who clearly had no idea what that meant, just nodded and wrapped his arms around Paige’s middle for a quick and risky hug. “Thank you.”

“Run.” Paige pushed him away gently and handed him her canteen. “ _Now._ ”

Sandy sprinted away from the dam, away from the mutts, which were so near now, their teeth were flashing in the sunlight.

Paige took a deep, steadying breath.

***

Rose stopped breathing.

***

“Come here, you bastards,” Paige muttered under her breath, her jaw locked stubbornly, the charge held tightly in her hands. She took a few step backwards towards the dam, determined to make this count for something. “Come on.” Her small dagger was in her hand, the blade pressed against a red wire.

The mutts dove for her, jaws open wide.

***  
“Hey there, wildcat.” Ben Solo loomed over Rey, who looked up with a gasp, scrambling for her staff, even as Nimaa covered her brother’s body with her own.

***

The heat of the first of the worm-dog’s breath washed over Paige Tico, who didn’t so much as blink as she cut the wire.

***

A plume of fire erupted, carrying sand and rock and worm with it - all three mutts ripped apart by the force of the bomb’s blast, and the dam behind it trembled.

The second explosive went off.

***

Ben raised his empty hands and smiled at Rey, who had stood, teeth bared, with her staff held between them as a threat.

“Easy,” he murmured. “I didn’t come here to kill you.” He looked over her shoulder at the twins. “Or them.”

“What did you come here for then?” Rey asked warily, taking a step back subconsciously.

His smile broadened, the scar on the side of his face lifting with it.

“I came here to live.”

***

Another cannon fired.

***

Finn Storm carried an unconscious Rose Tico from the monitor room, his eyes worried as he watched her pale face; Poe Dameron watched Rey Kenobi lower her staff, her eyes still narrowed.

Nobody watched the cracks race through the foundation of the dam.

***

Six remained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ......
> 
> So there's obviously going to be a second chapter for Rey's games....(as the chapter count goes up again)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you again for all your lovely support as I continue to write this increasingly dark fic. I know this chapter was disjointed with all the POV cuts/changes/scenes from the Games and the Capitol (I'd hoped it would create the effect of the action moving along) so I hope it worked out. Let me know if you have questions or predictions for the next part ;) I always do love reading predictions.
> 
> Also as far as your comments - this week was /rough/ and I reread everyone's comments about three dozen times and they cheered me up, so thanks, friends.


	6. The Final Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey reaches the end of her Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many warnings for disturbing violence in this one. This is a very difficult, very angsty, very death-heavy chapter. 
> 
> If you're very, very concerned about the well-being of characters who aren't Rey, please check out the end notes before proceeding, and I'll let you know how many Victors there are in these Games.
> 
> Other warnings:  
> Please note that the overall warning for this fic - Major Character Death - has not changed.
> 
> WARNING: Violence, including: death of small children, beheadings, throats being cut, near-drownings, drownings, psychological torture
> 
> Other WARNING: Poe sort of...starts a rumor that Obi Wan Kenobi's senility is hereditary/Rey is also addled. He has his reasons for doing this. He's trying to protect her, in a Capitol way. Still. Needs a warning.

“What a lovely home you have!” The chipper Capitol newswoman, Claudia Medleyson, stepped over an abandoned bucket on the floor and beamed around the small, two room shanty at the edge of District Four. Her aqua hair stood out violently against the wood planks that formed the walls.

“Thank you.” Old Ben Kenobi stood by, his hands clasped peacefully in front of his body, and smiled pleasantly. The cameramen focused in on him a few times, but mostly aimed for the small bed in the corner, under a shelf littered with sea glass and shells. 

“Is this where Rey sleeps?” The woman leaned down and smiled keenly, poking at the odd miscellany. She didn’t wait for Old Ben to answer. “And what’s all this?”

“Rey likes to collect things when she walks on the beach.” Old Ben smiled proudly and tapped his cane on the floor. To his left, a handsome man in his late thirties ran a hand through salt and pepper hair, his light brown skin, calloused hands, and healthy complexion marking him a District Four native. “And some of them were gifts.”

“Gifts?” Claudia turned with an awkward, half-smile, a piece of shiny blue glass in her hand. It matched her hair unnaturally well. “Oh...how...lovely.”

“Mhm.” Old Ben sighed and looked out the window towards the sea. Behind the shanty, the trees creaked in the wind, and the only other sound to be heard was the faint humming of the Capitol cameras. “For her birthday. It’s...today’s her birthday.”

“Is it?” Claudia clapped her hands excitedly. “Why, that’s  _ delightful _ !”

“She’ll be home soon,” Old Ben continued, having not looked over to Claudia at her outburst. His blue eyes focused on the horizon, distant and sad. One camera lingered on him while the others focused on the other man, and Claudia. “You’ll have to stay for some tea. And cake. We always have cake on Rey’s birthday.”

“Rey isn’t coming home today,” the District Four man said quietly, his hand at Old Ben’s elbow. “She’s...she left.”

“She did?” Old Ben nodded and swallowed hard. “She did.”

“Yes, and we just adore her.” Claudia settled on Rey’s tiny bed, her nose wrinkling for only a second at its hard, lumpy mattress. “Don’t we, boys?” The cameramen didn’t say anything, but Claudia didn’t care, just continued to tap tap tap her cerulean shoes against the dirt floor. “Even the president loves her! And her sweetheart!”

Old Ben turned from the window with a more genuine smile. “Breha met her?”

An uncomfortable silence rippled through the gathered people. “Not Breha,” the man whispered, tugging at Old Ben’s elbow urgently before placing his hand at his back. “You’ll have to excuse him,” he said, this time directing his words at Claudia and her crew. “The afternoons can get difficult. Forgets what year it is.”

Old Ben smiled at the man and then squinted his eyes, eyeing his empty hands. “Poe, did you remember Rey’s gift?”

“Poe?” Claudia stood, her voice entirely too interested now. 

“My son,” the man explained hastily, his hand raised in supplication, a nervous smile on his handsome face. “We - he and I help out sometimes, you know…” He cleared his throat awkwardly and shook his head. “Longtime family friends.”

“Kes  _ Dameron _ !” Claudia wiggled in excitement. “I thought I recognized you! The man who snared the heart of Shara Bey!”

“That’s me,” Kes said with a pained laugh. “Now, I’m very sorry, but it’s - it’s time for Ben’s medicine.”

“Is it?” Old Ben blinked and then nodded. “Why, I suppose it is.”

Before he turned to follow Kes to the kitchen area, he stopped and pointed at the beautiful net that stretched over Rey’s bed, handwoven, with sea glass that shone like gems fastened here and then, casting fractured, colored light over her blankets. 

“Poe made that for Rey’s sixteenth birthday.” Old Ben smiled and tapped the door frame before ducking out of sight. “I think we’ll use it at their wedding.”

***

Ben Solo’s hometown interview was only slightly less awkward.

There were no family members to interview, only stern-faced benefactors who’d raised him at the District One Training Center. 

The only comment to be made about him was that he had been a particularly strong, if particularly angry, boy.

“And it’s a shame about his parents,” one woman added thoughtlessly as she continued to stock weapons, not stopping in her task to address the camera fully.

No one would explain what she meant.

***

“Old Ben Kenobi?” Poe Dameron blinked in feigned surprise when they asked him about his connection to the grandfather of his tribute. “Oh, my father and I help take care of him while Rey is in school. It’s the least we can do, to share the generous winnings the Capitol sends us each month with a lonely old man and his granddaughter.” Poe grinned at the camera and blew a kiss. “And we’re  _ ever  _ so thankful for everything the Capitol has given us.”

Poe Dameron’s smile didn’t budge when they played back the clip of Old Ben talking about the net, and his posture didn’t change; he leaned back in his chair, one foot on the opposite knee, his hands clasped over his chest, utterly slouched, utterly careful, utterly beautiful.

“That’s sweet.” Poe laughed, a brittle, sharp sound, when the video ended and Lando turned to him with a perfectly manicured eyebrow lifted. “I found that old thing behind my boat one morning and brought it by when I came to check on the old man, intending to fix it. I gave it to him after the old man assumed it was for Rey’s birthday.”

“Which is today,” Lando prompted. 

“Is it?” Poe wrinkled his nose in thought and shrugged. “She must be, what, sixteen now?”

“Seventeen.” Lando groaned and rolled his eyes, and the audience laughed cheerfully for a few seconds, alongside host and guest - 

Silly Poe Dameron. So forgetful. 

At least he was pretty.

***

“Come to think of it,” Poe said, a little more thoughtfully by the end of his interview, after Lando expressed doubt that the beautiful girl from Four could really be related to Old Ben. “He and Rey  _ do  _ have the same eyes. At least, that’s what Maz always says.” 

Maz Kanata never came to the interviews. She refused.

There were no reasons left for her to say yes to them.

“What do you mean by that?” Lando leaned forward with a smile. “His are blue. Hers are … brown?”

“Hazel,” Poe corrected automatically before coughing, the only time in the interview his smile slipped. “No, I just mean - ah, play it back, will you? Him looking out the window?” He waved his hand up towards the screen that took up the entire wall behind his and Lando’s seats.

The clip rolled, Old Ben staring towards the sea, his expression thoughtful, lost and found all at once.

“That’s the one.” Poe laughed and braced his elbow on the armrest of his chair, stretching slightly, showing off his golden chest, exposed by the deep neckline of his white shirt. Everyone’s eyes in the audience tracked the movement. “Rey looked like that all the time when we were growing up. I’m sure you’ve noticed it in the arena, right?” He pointed at a woman in the front row of the studio audience; the camera flipped to her, and she nodded, eagerly, her hand pressed to her chest, a chemical orange blush rising to her round cheeks. The man next to her nodded too. A murmur of assent could be heard from the crowd. 

“It’s the Kenobi look,” Poe commented serenely, examining his nailbeds with disinterest.

“You’re saying... it... runs in the family?” Lando surmised, his expression oddly unreadable.

“I guess I am.” Poe Dameron’s smile didn’t match the coldness gathering in his eyes. 

***

Rey Kenobi didn’t sleep a wink on her sixth night in the arena.

Instead, she watched Ben Solo sleep, his face barely illuminated by the moon overhead, his dark waves of hair an odd contrast to his skin. 

A few times, her hand strayed to her staff, an odd expression on her face, but then she would sigh and clench her fist and look back to the horizon, her eyes focused for any threats, but somehow distant, like she were imagining she were somewhere far, far away.

***

“Tell me something,” Ben said the next day as they walked side by side. Nimaa walked with her brother in front of them, Jaku leaning on her heavily. He’d slept poorly the night before as well. “Something good.”

Nimaa combed her fingers absently through her brother’s curls, and Rey kept her eyes on the horizon.

“It’s my birthday today.” She kept her fingers wrapped around her staff. “Made it to seventeen.”

“You’ll make it past seventeen, wildcat.” Ben peered at her through his hair, but she didn’t look over, just jerked her head to the side noncommittally. Jaku laughed at something his sister said, something inaudible to the camera and the tall teenangers walking behind them. 

“Not feeling like much of a wildcat,” Rey admitted after a long pause. She blinked, looking surprised at her vulnerability, and ducked her head, her eyes now fixed to the sand beneath them. 

“Maybe kitten, then?” 

“Call me kitten, and I’ll cut your legs off.”

Ben threw his head back and laughed, startling the children in front of him.

***

That night, Ben returned from the shadows and hurled a carcass down in front of Rey, his forearms stained with blood, as well as his sword.

“Happy birthday.” He settled down in front of the mutt, some odd deer that didn’t look natural, and began to clean his kill. 

Nimaa watched, eyes wide. Jaku shivered next to her.

***

No one died on the seventh day of the Games, but it was fine.

There were other ways to entertain.

***

On the eighth day, Jaku was too tired to move, so the four settled for the time being under a skeletal ship and rested.

“Tell us another story?” Nimaa asked hopefully, too tired at this point to keep an eye on Ben Solo for more than a few seconds here and there. She leaned her head against her brother, who hadn’t produced sweat since last night. Rey handed them her canteen and frowned, her fingers tapping against the metal of the ship. 

Ben Solo kept his eyes to the west, sometimes sweeping his gaze to the east, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He didn’t seem like he’d heard Nimaa’s question at all. 

“There was a young prince named Theseus, who was trapped in a maze.” Rey’s voice faded slightly, as though remembering she had an invisible audience. “And a young woman who knew how to get out…”

***

Poe Dameron did not have any appointments with sponsors on the seventh day. An oddity.

He did, however, receive a summons to President Snoke.

When he entered his chambers, he saw Rey’s face projected on a dozen screens, her dimple back in her cheek as she spoke to the young twins from Eleven. Ben Solo’s figure could be seen in the background.

“A touching story,” Snoke said calmly, pouring a decanter of amber liquid into two glasses. “May I interest you in a drink?”

Poe remembered what Syrus Quarterfell had told him, and shook his head. “No thank you, sir. I need to keep sharp in case one of our patrons … calls.”

“How thoughtful of you.” Snoke swallowed his drink and then gestured to a straight-backed chair, gilded and hard. Poe took a seat, not stupid enough to refuse two offers in a row from the president. “Let’s have a chat.”

“Of course, sir.” Poe laced his fingers together and willed his heart to stop its race in his chest. There was an uncomfortable silence, and all he could hear was Rey’s voice, just as quiet and musical as it ever was, narrating a story he’d taught her.

“A very smart young woman,” Snoke complimented, raising his second glass to the screen before turning to Poe. Poe didn’t look away from his cold, black eyes, or his twisted, scarred face. “Then again, I suppose she’d have to be, to catch your eye.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” Poe tilted his head and pressed his thumbnails into his palm, refusing to recede into the panic gnawing at the corner of his mind. “She’s my tribute.”

“You don’t need to be stupid with me, boy.” Snoke sneered, his mildly pleasant facade falling away instantly. “You  _ love  _ her.” He spat the word as though it were filthy, and Poe fought the urge to recoil.

“I care about her,” he said coldly, not blinking or flinching. “And Aleksander. They’re my tributes. I need to care about them.”

“Pathetic.” Snoke set his glass down and grabbed a small plastic square from his desk. He waved it in the direction of the screen nearest to them, and Poe didn’t turn to look.

_ “C’mon, we can make it, let’s - let’s go. I have a boat, and money, and, and we can go back and get Kes and Obi Wan, and-”  _

Poe’s gut clenched as the horrible realization hit him. His eyes finally slid over to the screen Snoke had changed, and saw himself, sitting on his boat. Rey was sitting on his lap, her expression concerned. Haunted.

_ “You’re scaring me, _ ” she whispered to him in the past, her small hands framing his face. 

“What is this?” Poe croaked, his hands gripping the sides of his chair. “How did you-”

“You think I’d let one of my best assets jet around the seashore with no insurance?” Snoke tsked even as Poe on-screen murmured, “ _ We can make it. We can get out of here, away from all of it, and  _ -”

“Turn it off,” Poe whispered, feeling a thousand miles away, even as he sank further into his knowledge that he was, perhaps forever, trapped in this fucking city. 

“You think” - Snoke stood, his golden robes flowing around his ancient frame with an eerie delicacy - “That I’d take my eyes off the son of Shara Bey for even a single second?”

Poe blinked, a new wave of shock coming over him. “Wh-what?”

“You mean your father never told you?” Snoke laughed cruelly, and Poe wondered if he’d be whipped for vomiting on the president’s desk. “The day your mother died? She was running away. Her boat was caught by a swell, and the wreckage washed up on shore.”

“You’re a liar.” Poe stood then, anger racing through him. “You’re a  _ liar.  _ My mother never ran from  _ anything. _ ”

“She left you behind.” Snoke slammed a withered hand down on the desk, causing Poe to startle. “And she passed on her cowardice to her son.” He grinned widely at the expression on Poe’s face. “The same cowardice that killed the girl you love.”

“She isn’t dead,” Poe whispered, his fists clenching and unclenching. He forced his shoulder to relax, forced himself to look even halfway compliant, if only because Rey was still in that arena. “She-”

“If only you’d kept your head down.” Snoke settled back into his seat and smiled up at Poe, who struggled for breath. “If only you hadn’t been so  _ romantic  _ in your notions of running and leaving all this behind. After all we’ve done for you. All we’ve invested in you.” Poe shook his head, over and over again, trying to clear it of the accusation that this really  _ was  _ his fault. “If only you’d never decided to take what was the Capitol’s.”

He waved the square again, and all the screens shifted, and Poe flinched away from what now surrounded him on all sides.

A video of Rey, laughing with her friends in the schoolyard. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old.

His father, cleaning a fish and looking out the window.

Old Ben, sitting on the empty bed, under the net Poe had woven over the course of four months, that he’d woven for the girl he loved, his eyes lost and full of the sea.

Rey again - 

Rey swimming by herself, from every angle -

Rey on Poe’s boat, her head on his shoulder.

Rey kissing Poe on his boat, Poe kissing Rey in the Capitol, Rey holding him tightly when he returned from the Capitol, Rey -

“ _ I love you, _ ” she whispered in the dark, the camera lingering on the way their bodies pressed together.

“Stop it,” Poe whispered, closing his eyes. “I - I understand.”

“I don’t think you do.” Snoke waved the square once more, and all the screens returned to the Games.

Ben Solo sat next to Rey Kenobi on the sand as the twins slept.

“Get out of my sight.” Snoke turned to watch the Games, and Peacekeepers appeared in the doorway. Poe stood.

He managed to get fifteen feet down the hall before his legs gave out.

The Peackeepers dragged him the rest of the way to the Mentor’s room.

***

“In your story.” Ben held a piece of meat in his too-large hands as he stared hungrily at Rey. “Did Theseus and Ariadne get married? After they ran away together?”

Rey couldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s not that kind of story.”

“It should be.” When she didn’t say anything, he raised his voice. “Why shouldn’t it end that way?”

She shushed him, her hand gentle on his arm as Nimaa stirred from her slumber. “Because, not all stories end happily.” 

Ben offered Rey a piece of his meal, and she took it gingerly. “Ours will.”

Rey had nothing to say to that.

***

“ _ A Wren flies through the meadow, _

_ It finds a Bridge over the sea. _

_ So many things to know, _

_ So many things to be. _

 

_ A Wedge between me and my vow, _

_ A Moth can hide in the trees, _

_ So many things to know now, _

_ So many things to be.” _

Rey finished her song quietly, her hand smoothing over the clammy brow of Jaku. His face twitched uneasily, still etched with pain from a few hours earlier, when Rey had changed his bandages.

The stretching, angry red marks scorched into his dark skin had set her teeth on edge. Her own expression had yet to relax, even as she pretended to smile for his twin. 

“Who taught you that song?” Nimaa blinked sleepily up at Rey, who threw her cloak over the girl’s body.

“My grandfather.” Rey sat back on her heels after tapping Nimaa’s nose. “He used to sing it to me when I refused to go to sleep.”

Nimaa giggled before turning on her side. Her small fingers reached out and brushed her brother’s shoulder. He didn’t move. “Is Jaku going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Rey answered truthfully. “But I’m not giving up on him. We just need to wait.”

A few minutes later, Nimaa was asleep, and Rey settled back on an overturned metal box, her staff on her knees.

Ben joined her half an hour later, after checking the perimeter of their camp. 

They were both quiet at first, but then Ben cleared his throat, his hand lifting from his own leg to cover Rey’s. She didn’t pull away.

After a beat, she flipped her hand to press her palm against his.

***

The Capitol cried, and the photo of their interwoven hands circulated the holoweb rapidly.

***

“I can do it, you know.”

“Do what?” Rey blinked, having been about to doze off. Ben stared at her steadily, unapologetic for having startled her awake. 

Ben’s lips twitched mirthlessly while he tilted his head to the side, towards the sleeping twins. “He...doesn’t have to wake up.”

“Ben.” Rey pulled her hand away, suddenly pale under the moon. 

“It’s not a kindness to let him live,” he argued, his voice velvet, soft, soothing. Rey didn’t look soothed. “He’s in agony, Rey.”

It was the first time he’d said her name in the arena. 

“He’s a child,” Rey whispered back, her cheeks turning bright red. “He’s - no. No, you can’t.”

“I can,” Ben snapped, his voice rising before he took a deep breath. “You can go for a walk. It’ll be done by the time you get back. He won’t even wake up.”

“He’s a child,” Rey repeated firmly. “If you do that - you’re - you’re a monster.”

“I am a monster.” Ben shook his head and stood. Rey did as well, her staff already held out towards him. He pushed it away with his large hand and walked out from underneath the shelter, his shoulders stiff and tense. 

Rey stared at the twins for a long moment before turning to join him. 

“I’m sorry.” Her voice echoed oddly in the quiet of the desert. She stared at Ben’s back before turning and looking out in the other direction, past the ship, eyes alert and watchful. “I didn’t mean-”

“You did.” Ben’s back was to hers, and he reached backwards with his hand until his pinkie brushed against hers. “It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t.”

***

The Capitol watched, on the edge of their seat, as Rey struggled to find the right words, and Ben struggled with his decision.

***

Poe Dameron didn’t look up from where his head was buried in Finn Storm’s lap. Rose Tico had yet to return to the Mentor’s holding area, as she was still under sedation. She’d woken up once, and nearly gouged a medical officer’s eyes out, screaming for her sister.

“I don’t trust him,” Finn muttered, glaring up at the screen. 

“Rey will protect them,” Poe whispered, not looking up. He tightened his arms around his middle, still ill from his conversation with Snoke. 

“...It’s not them I’m worried about,” Finn said quietly. “At least. Not where he’s concerned.”

“What do you mean?” Poe did sit up finally, and Finn looked at him steadily, his jaw tight, eyes exhausted.

“Ben wouldn’t do anything that would make Rey hate him. Not at this point.” Finn shrugged and picked at the upholstery on the couch. “But he’s a master manipulator. That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Rey’s smart.” Poe dragged his fingers through his hair. “She won’t do anything she doesn’t want to.”

He could feel the silence stretch between them, and then:

“If she’s a Victor, she’ll have to.”

***

“My parents left me in District One.” They were sitting next to each other again, staring in different directions, their shoulders touching. Rey wrapped her arms around her knees. “I - I chose to volunteer because this is what I’m good at. I  _ am  _ the best fighter in District One.”

“I believe it.”

“No one ever knocked me on my ass until you.” Ben bumped her shoulder with a dark grin. “There’s a lot we could have taught each other.”

“The commute between One and Four isn’t very convenient.” Rey tilted her head back to the pretend stars in the sky, a smile on her face. Ben chuckled.

“But we wouldn’t have to commute.”

“What?” Rey looked over sharply, and Ben gazed back at her, his eyes almost black from the night sky. 

“You’re not really from District Four. Are you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rey’s face turned red.

***

“What is he talking about?” Lando asked, dumbfounded, staring up at the screen.

Dooku shifted uncomfortably, eyeing their producer.

***

“I recognized your last name the first time I heard it.” Ben’s spine was perfectly straight, his hands still. Rey seemed frozen as well, her eyes on his face. “Your grandfather left District One right after you were born.” Rey didn’t say anything, so he finished the thought for her. “ _ You  _ were born in District One.”

***   
“They’re from the same district?” Lando looked flabbergasted, and the audience grew louder and louder around him. “What? Is that possible?”

“Calm down,” Dooku extended his hand to Lando and by extension the audience, but they were already on their feet, screaming.

***

“Our grandfathers were friends. Best friends.” Ben turned to face her now, his face alight with determination and something terrifying. 

“Who’s your grandfather?” Rey barely seemed able to form the words, her eyes wide.

“You know who my grandfather is.” Ben knelt on the sand, his hands digging into his thighs. “Say it. Part of you has  _ always  _ known.”

She shook her head, eyeing the sky anxiously, but Ben reached out and grabbed her arm tightly. “ _ Say it.” _

“Darth Vader.”

***

“Is it even legal?” Lando asked dazedly, as Dooku rubbed his temples, looking very much his age for once. “For a president’s - the  _ founder’s  _ grandson to be in the Games?”

Behind him, the Capitol screamed for their freedom.

***

Poe couldn’t sit down, even when Finn begged him. He kicked a chair and sent it flying across the monitoring room, startling Tarkin where he was sitting with Rax and Sindian. 

“There’s no way to spin this.” He ripped at his hair and moaned, his eyes squeezing shut. “She’s - she’s going to  _ die _ , Snoke will have her  _ killed _ .”

“There’s literally no place worse for her to be right now,” Finn pointed out, gripping Poe’s arms and shaking him slightly. “The worst has already happened. Keep it together, man. Breathe. Breathe with me.”

***

“We should have had an entire lifetime together.” Ben shook his head, his hair flapping. “We should have grown up next to each other-”

“I don’t understand.” Rey shook her head, and then Ben loomed over her, staring down at her, the moon behind him so that he cast a shadow over her trembling form. “I-”

“We shouldn’t be playing their Game,” Ben murmured, his hands framing her face. Rey gripped his wrists, a line forming between her brows. “We should be running it.”

“I-”

“You should have been at my side all along,” Ben continued, his voice rising again. “Not at Tommy Calhan’s. Or Poe Dameron’s, that pathetic little whore-”

“Don’t  _ talk  _ about Poe that way.” Rey shoved at Ben, surprising him, but the aggressive movement was lost as the ground beneath them shook. “What the hell?” She gripped Ben a second later as the sound of explosions ricocheted throughout the arena. 

“Is that a cannon?” Nimaa asked, suddenly awake, her eyes wide in terror. Jaku didn’t move. 

“That’s no cannon.” Ben wrapped an arm protectively around Rey’s middle, ignoring the way she glared up at him. “That’s a bomb.”

***

Paige Tico’s charges had finally detonated, a day and a half after her death.

The cracks in the dam deepened.

***

“Explain,” Snoke glared at Terex, who was forced to his knees in front of the president.

“It’s barely any damage,” the Gamemaker stuttered, his eyes wide. Behind him, the screen showing the remaining six tributes flashed from perspective to perspective dizzyingly. “It - they’re not strong enough to take down an entire cement structure that large. I - I swear!”

“On your life.” Snoke leaned down and wrapped a hand around the man’s throat, squeezing hard. “Swear on your life.”

***

Poe had an appointment at eight a.m. the next morning.

He wore nothing but soft pants: no shoes, no shirt, no jewelry. The instructions had been very clear.

When he arrived at the door, he was surprised to see another Victor waiting there, one who wasn’t very popular in the way Poe was, no doubt due to the nerve damage and lingering stutter he’d developed as a result of his time in the Arena, fifteen years prior.

“Bodhi?”

“P-Poe.” Bodhi Rook, a Victor from Three, nodded in greeting. He the same outfit Poe did. His chest was painfully thin where Poe’s was golden and muscular, his belly concave, his stance defeated. His face was still handsome though, and his glasses sparkled charmingly on his long nose. “Ah, w-wait.” He took them off and set them down on the floor, to the side of the sliding doors. “H-he’s v-v-v-very pa...pa...particular.”

“Never met him before,” Poe muttered, anxiety clenching in his gut. Bodhi certainly looked nervous enough, and that couldn’t be a good sign.

The doors slide open, and Galen Erso stood waiting, his hands clasped behind his back. “Gentlemen. Thank you for joining me.”

Poe and Bodhi walked into the suite. The doors closed behind them.

***

Nimaa and Jaku trailed behind Ben and Rey today as they headed back towards the Cornucopia, in search of a cooler climate. The temperature had risen uncomfortably since the sun rose, and now Rey walked with her cloak over her head. 

She and Ben hadn’t discussed their conversation from the night before, but she allowed him to take her hand here and there.

The camera loved it.

The four tributes hobbled across the sand, unaware that two others were on a collision course with them.

***

“I’d like to tell you a story.” Galen Erso propped his feet up on the table in front of him, a smile on his thin lips. The Games played silently behind him on a massive holoscreen, and Poe tried not to let his eyes drift to it. “That’s all.”

“That sounds nice, honey,” Poe said with a smile, kneeling at Erso’s feet. The older man frowned and tapped Poe on the shoulder.

“Not like that.” Galen gestured to the soft chair across from him. Bodhi was already sitting in its twin. “I don’t - that’s not why I called you here, Mr. Dameron.”

“And Galen disabled the cameras and microphones, so you can cut the shit,” Bodhi said serenely, grabbing one of the bottles of water from the table. He handed another one to a shocked Poe. “Yeah, you’re not the only one who can act.”

“I don’t understand.” Poe gripped the bottle and sat in the chair slowly, his eyes flickering between the two, calm men.

“You will.” Galen cleared his throat and smiled. “Now tell me. What do you know about the time Snoke came to power?”

***

It happened too quickly.

Ben had jogged ahead to the top of the nearest dune - he was standing like a sentinel, staring out ahead of them, his sword loose in his hand.

Rey turned to the north, distracted by another explosion in the distance, her brow furrowed as she watched a plume of smoke rising. “What on-”

“Rey!” It was Nimaa, who screamed loudly, her voice breaking with terror. Rey spun around, her staff in hand, and Ben could be heard shouting in alarm.

All Rey could focus on was the way Jaku’s body collapsed to the sand, his throat cut; all she could hear was the cannon firing; all she could see was Nimaa struggling against the arms that held her frail body.

“No!” Rey sprinted towards Armitage Hux, who stood with a demented grin, his knife pressed to the little girl’s windpipe. “Don’t-”

Nimaa joined her twin in the sand.

With a feral scream of rage, Rey leapt for Hux, not caring that her staff was no kind of match for the ax Hux wore at his side. He grabbed it, cackling wildly, but before he could heft it in her direction:

An arrow embedded in his shoulder.

“What the fuck?” Hux turned even paler under his sunburn.

There was no one they could see, just Ben Solo still running towards them, the space between them diminishing with every stride. 

Another arrow buried itself in the sand at Hux’s feet. Rey slammed her staff into his abdomen, feeling the bones there give way, and Hux grunted before kicking her savagely in the thigh. 

Rey went down with a grunt, and Hux lifted his axe; her staff rose to block her torso, but another arrow flew past Hux, and he cursed vividly before turning and running away from the approaching figure of Ben Solo, and away from the arrows coming from an invisible source. 

“Rey!” Ben called out to her, but Rey didn’t answer. Instead, she crawled towards Nimaa, who still spluttered for breath, her blood staining the ground beneath her.

“No.” Rey’s breath shuddered, and she shook her head, patting Nimaa’s hair with one hand as she applied pressure to the wound with the other. “N-no, you’re going to be okay. It’s okay.”

“S-sing?” Nimaa’s lips formed the words, but she was unable to speak, the damage to her throat too great. Rey sobbed briefly before nodding, still pressing down on the wound, staining the bandage around her forearm. 

“ _ A Wren flies through the meadow, _

_ It finds a Bridge over the sea. _

_ So many things to know, _

_ So many things to be.” _

***

Another cannon.

Four remained.

***

Poe looked away from Galen Erso, reeling from what he’d just learned, a glass of liquor dangling, undrunk, from his hand; but then he stood with a shout. 

“Oh  _ fuck  _ -”

***

Rey sobbed brokenly while stroking the hair of the twins.

“We have to move.” Ben tugged on her arm desperately. “We - we need to take shelter wildcat, c’mon.”

“No.” She shook her head and patted around in her backpack for something. “No, they need - there’s supposed to be flowers.”

“What?” Ben stared at her in shock, but Rey didn’t seem to care about his thoughts at all at the moment.

“In District Four.” She yanked items out of her backpack, throwing them into the sand around her; she cut her hand on a knife and didn’t stop. “We - we cover the d-dead with flowers, push them out to s-sea - we - we need flowers.”

“We need to move.” Ben pulled at her again, more forcefully this time, and Rey wailed in anger, hitting at him. “ _ Rey  _ \- they collect the bodies, we can’t bury them. We need to leave them.”

“You never cared about them!” Rey screamed, her face red with fury. “You - you just - you don’t  _ care _ !”

“I do care!” Ben bellowed. “I care about us getting the  _ fuck  _ out of here. So come on! We need to go!”

“They’re dead.” Rey collapsed, crying, her face buried in her hands. Ben sighed and began to collect the items she’d discarded in her haste, chucking them back in her knapsack. 

“They were always going to die,” Ben murmured, and Rey hiccuped furiously. He nudged her again, and she shoved at him.

Ben sighed. 

Then, he stood up, her knapsack and staff slung over his massive shoulder, and grabbed her.

***

Poe broke the glass he was holding in Galen Erso’s suite.

***

“I’ll carry you then.” Ben held Rey to his chest, in a perverted version of a bridal carry, and hauled her physically away from the dead children in the sand. 

Rey beat at his chest, but he didn’t stop to apologize.

***

When he returned to the monitoring room, he found Finn with his knees to his chest. On screen, Rey and Ben sat, scowling in different directions in the dark.

Around them, parachutes fell like shooting stars.

“What are they?” Poe whispered, and Finn shrugged, not seeming surprised at all to find Poe over his shoulder.

“Flowers.” Finn handed Poe the print-out receipt of the sponsorships. “Eleven districts sent her flowers.”

***

On the ninth morning, Rey piled up the seaferns and thistleweeds, the daisies and daffodils, the primroses and peonies, and stood, her eyes distant and lost. Then, she dropped the match, and the flowers slowly began to burn.

She’d been sent flowers from every district but Two.

“Why are you burning them?” Ben asked, standing and shouldering his pack once more. “They were so pretty.”

Rey watched the smoke trail into the sky and shrugged. It was a few seconds before she answered.

“Maybe it will reach them.” She waved her fingers through the smoke. 

“...Maybe.” Ben took her hand and pulled her away from the pyre. “Let’s go, Rey.”

***

“It’s good that you love children.” Ben smiled at Rey when they stopped for a brief rest in the afternoon. “I always wanted children.”

“What?” Rey blinked and separated herself from whatever daydream she was lost in, her eyes barely clearing.

“You’d make an excellent mother,” Ben said patiently, and Rey snorted.

“I’d be a terrible mother.” She picked at her nails ruthlessly with a scowl. “Besides. I was never going to get married.”

“And why’s that?” Ben teased, poking at her with his foot. But Rey didn’t seem interested in playing. 

“Because.” Rey tossed her hair out and frowned. “The only person from Four I ever thought about marrying went into the Games.”

“And they lost?”

Rey’s eyes returned to the horizon, unfocusing once more. “Yeah. They lost.”

***

“There has to be something they can do,” a woman from the Capitol sobbed into the camera as she was interviewed by the Capitol News station; her friends on either side of her clutched at her arms. “It was agonizing enough to watch Rey lose those little babies! Imagine if she lost  _ him,  _ too.”

“Or if he lost her,” her friend simpered, his face twitching in unfeigned grief. “Oh, God. They haven’t even  _ kissed _ .”

“Can you imagine?” The woman gripped her friend and shook him. “If we didn’t get to see that?”

***

Poe and Finn sat side by side in the Medical Center that afternoon.

They’d both been the entertainment at a Games party today:

The two youngest male Victors, one a ruthless killer, a beloved lothario, the other a defensive, strong farm boy.

They loved to watch them fight.

“Sorry.” Finn winced for Poe as the droid stitched up his eyebrow. Poe shrugged.

“My mom had a scar like this one,” Poe said dully, his eyes continuing to flicker to the screen that projected the Games, even here. “They didn’t fix it.” He didn’t blink at the shot injected into his forehead. “You won’t even be able to tell I had this in a few minutes.”

“I’m still sorry,” Finn said quietly. “It still hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.” Poe cleared his throat, and the droid rolled away. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and then, to his surprise, Finn offered him a small piece of rope.

“I work with my hands sometimes to keep from getting...too into my head,” he explained. “I figure you know some knots too.”

“A few.” Poe began to weave the classic clove hitch, the memory so ingrained in his muscles, he didn’t even think once about it. Then, he started a bowline. After that, a cleat, around the bar on the side of his bed. Finn sat next to him the whole time, the Games blaring in the background, Dooku and Lando arguing over whether or not the Capitol would bend to the pressure and allow two Victors.

“Sometimes,” Poe whispered, ashamed of it even as he allowed thought to become word. “I pray that she doesn’t win.”

Finn covered his hands with his large, calloused one and squeezed softly. “She’ll come back out, and you won’t even remember thinking that way.”

On screen, Ben Solo cleaned his sword, and Rey stared into the distance, her face oddly blank, her shoulders trembling as though she were cold.

“I killed her,” Poe admitted out loud for the first time. “I love her, and it killed her.”

“She’s still alive.” Finn nudged his shoulder, hard. “She’s still fighting.”

Poe was too tired to argue.

***

“You’d be a princess in the Capitol,” Ben declared out of nowhere, and it made Rey smile for the first time all day. He grinned in response. “An empress, even.”

“I don’t think I want to run an empire,” Rey laughed, poking at his side as they walked. “I know what happens to emperors.”

“And what’s that?” Ben growled playfully and lunged for her. Rey shrieked and dodged him, laughing as the sand kicked up around them. “Gotta keep you on your toes, wildcat.”

“I’m all toes these days,” Rey giggled, dodging Ben’s next lunge, twirling out of the way. She stretched her hands out, humming to herself, her tunic floating around her like the wings of some great bird. She didn’t stop spinning, not until they heard a shout behind them.

“Sandy?” Rey stopped spinning, losing her balance for a second. “Sandy!”

Aleksander raced towards them, a bow and arrow clutched in his hands, and Ben clenched his jaw. 

***

“What are you doing?” Poe leapt to his feet, shouting at the screen, even when Peacekeepers ordered him to sit down and be quiet. “No, no, no, no!”

***

Rey screamed when Ben pulled his sword and cut Aleksander Martin’s head off without hesitation.

It bounced to a stop at her feet, and her once-tan tunic was splattered with red, like the polka dots that were so popular in the Capitol two seasons ago. 

***

Rey Kenobi didn’t stop screaming for ten seconds, the sound drowning out the boom of the cannon, and when she did stop, she fell to her knees, her fingers trembling as she reached out to close Aleksander’s eyes.

***

“He was attacking us.” Ben paced in agitation, his tunic billowing out behind him. “He - he had his weapon out, Rey, I didn’t think - it was you or him, and -”

Rey didn’t say anything, just picked up the necklace that had flown in the air when Ben had killed Sandy.

“And look, he was wearing  _ that,  _ there’s no reason to trust him-”

“It’s a starbird,” Rey said softly, her voice hoarse from screaming. She traced the curve of the metal. Ben knelt next to her and carefully wiped the blood from her face, the droplets she’d ignored in her terror. “My grandfather has a ring that looks just like this.”

“He what?” Ben’s voice changed slightly, and Rey looked up with wide eyes before putting the necklace on. “No, Rey, don’t wear that-”

“It’s all I have left of my district now.”

“You were born in District One.” They both stood, Ben glaring, Rey looking somewhere over his left shoulder, detached, defeated.

“District Four is my home,” Rey whispered. “And I’ll never see it again.”

***

Poe was out of sponsorships - and it was too close to the end for him to try and find more. There was no way to send her a sign to keep fighting.

He closed his eyes and willed the universe to somehow let Rey Kenobi know that he loved her, that no matter what his traitorous thoughts and sense said, he wanted her home, wanted her at his side, wanted to lean over the side of his boat each morning and find her waiting there for him.

***

“Don’t talk like that.” Ben wrapped his large hands around her biceps, real concern in his eyes when his fingers were able to touch. “We’re down to the Final Three. It’s just Hux and us.’

“And then what?” Rey snapped, some light returning to her eyes, although her tone bordered on hysteria. “Huh? We’re fooling ourselves Ben. Only one of us is getting out of here.”

“I refuse to accept that.” Ben glowered and shook her slightly, and Rey reached out to push him but lost her balance and gripped his tunic instead. “I won’t kill you. I won’t.”

Rey cried bitterly, unable to stop now.

***

For the first time in 49 years, a protest broke out in the streets of the Capitol.

“Two Victors for One Panem!” A well-coiffed Merchant declared, spreading his velvet-covered arms wide. 

***

“Make the announcement,” Snoke said through gritted teeth to Terex. “And then meet me in my office.” 

The Gamemaker nodded, visibly pale, and walked to where Dooku, the official announcer for the Hunger Games, sat.

***

As Snoke prepared to execute the final stage of his Games, no one paid any mind to how the crevasse in the middle of the dam deepened, deepened, deepened -

Water spilled out towards the dry ground. A rumble shook the arena.

***

“How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?” Rey demanded shrilly, her hands still tightly clenched in Ben’s tunic. She almost lost her footing again, but this time due to the way the ground was shaking. Ben held her upright, staring at the ground in bewilderment.

Then:

“ _ Attention: Due to the unprecedented nature of these Games, we are pleased to announce that multiple Victors are possible, provided they were born in the same District. Thank you, and Happy Hunger Games.” _

Ben laughed, his expression clearing miraculously. “Together. We get out of here together.” 

Rey looked as though she didn’t quite understand, and Ben ducked his finger under her chin. “One more, and then we can go home.” Rey nodded uneasily, and looked up at Ben, who was large enough to block out the sun.

“One more, wildcat.” He leaned down slowly.

***

Elsewhere, the Capitol screamed in delight - and then in warning.

***

Something warm and wet flew into Rey Kenobi’s face, and she blinked in surprise. Ben was frozen above her, his expression frozen, halfway between euphoria and confusion.

Then, he fell to his knees, and forward onto his face.

Armitage Hux’s axe was buried in his back. 

***

There was a flurry of activity in the Command Center, as the dam suddenly broke, cement flying as the structure shattered.

Water roared outwards at a terrifying rate.

In the streets of the Capitol and every District, citizens of all walks of life stood frozen in horror.

***

The rumbling under their feet grew worse, but neither combatant paid it any mind.

“Ben!” Rey shouted, her hand flying to her mouth before she snagged her staff to block Hux’s next swing, with a spear, this time. Ben groaned softly, something close to her name, but she couldn’t spare a glance, not now when she and Hux were locked in battle. 

“I can’t believe I get to kill both of you,” Hux snarled. “The dog from One, and his master.”

“Fuck off.” Rey slammed his spear up, out of his grip, and then jabbed his gut with her staff. She kicked him right to the left of his groin, causing him to howl in pain.

The water surged over the dune then, a cacophonous roar following it.

***

Poe Dameron couldn’t help but notice the sound of the waves swallowed the sound of any possible cannon fire.

***

Hux and Rey both dropped their weapons and ran as the wave swept towards them. 

Rey reached the nearest wreck first and began to climb, and Hux did the same, swinging here and there at her with the axe he’d reclaimed from Ben Solo’s back on his way by.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Rey laughed hysterically before reaching the top of the structure.

The water swelled to the top.

And then spilled over.

***

Poe sat on a hovercraft with Gallius Rax and Carise Sindian, the mentors from District Two. They didn’t speak to each other; the older Victors didn’t even seem that interested in the screen.

Poe couldn’t look away. Not when the water flooded the arena entirely, not when Rey clambered onto a piece of wreckage as Hux did the same dozens of feet away, not when Rey’s fingers started to bleed from how hard she gripped the metal.

Eventually, their pieces of wreckage capsized - some four hours after the dam broke.

Poe hadn’t looked away once.

Just sat on a hovercraft, hundreds of feet above the girl he loved, the only thing stopping him from holding her a force field and one more life.

***

At one point, before the piece of flotsam she clung to capsized, Rey spoke to herself, her face pale, eyes closed. 

“We would have gotten married,” she whispered. “We would have....on the beach, I think. I … I’m sorry. I should have tried harder to win. I’m …” She trailed off, resting her cheek against the now cool metal. “I never got a chance to really show you that I love you. I’m sorry.”

***

In the Capitol, viewers wiped tears from their bejeweled ducts and whimpered into handkerchiefs at the cruelly separated lovers from One and Four.

***

“Dionysus saved Ariadne,” Rey whispered to herself, as the flotsam began to sink. “Perseus saved Andromeda. Odysseus found Penelope.” Rey began to tread water, her eyes distance even as her limbs moved on instinct. “But you didn’t ever seem to believe in happy endings.”

***

“She’s lost her mind,” Dooku said matter-of-factly, barely pretending to show concern for the girl from Four. “Tragic, really.”

“It does run in the family,” Lando conceded, watching as Rey’s limbs worked to keep her upright, her head above water. Hux sagged against his own piece of metal still, the fight seemingly gone out of the would-be soldier from Two. “But still. The folks at home want her to win. Right?”

The audience murmured in response, and Lando frowned.

Murmurs weren’t great for ratings.

***

“Keep swimming.” Poe pressed his palms to the screen on his side of the hovercraft, willing her to hear him. “Please, sweetheart, please-”

“Sit down, Dameron.” Maz Kanata materialized at his side and tugged on his shirt. “Before they see. Sit. Down.”

She shoved him into a chair, and Poe choked on a dry sob, his chest heaving. Maz settled next to him and grabbed his hands tightly. 

“She’s strong,” Maz reminded him gently. “She’ll come through.”

***

They couldn’t have predicted the mutts.

***

Giggles erupted from either side of Rey as she tread the water.

“Who’s there?” She whispered. 

***

Viewers continued to murmur, and Lando tsked in concern. “Hearing things doesn’t mean she’s lost her mind,” he said, hands raised.

But by then, everyone could see them.

***

A short distance away, Armitage Hux began to scream.

***

“Rey!” Nimaa giggled, her little face appearing in the water next to her. “Come on, Rey! You said we’d stick together.”

“You’re not real.” Rey tried to swim away, expending some valuable energy, but she bumped into another familiar face.

“How come you let him kill us, Rey?” Jaku blinked up at her dolefully, his brown eyes massive in his face. 

“You’re. Not. Real.”

“Rey!” Nimaa and Jaku began to swim around her, giggling happily, and Sandy Martin joined in. They sang like children, swimming in dizzying circles around the lost girl from Four. “Rey, Rey, she let us die, Rey, Rey, say goodbye!”

“Stop it!” Rey screamed, slapping her hands over her ears.

She sank like a stone.

***

“What the fuck is this?” Poe leapt to his feet, staring in horror. Rax and Sindian were also on their feet now, true revulsion painted on their normally stern faces. 

Snoke’s face appeared in the bottom corner of Poe’s screen. Only Poe’s screen.

“I believe you told her they were called sirens?” Snoke smiled thinly. “Thank you for the idea.”

Poe punched the screen. 

One of his knuckles shattered; the screen didn’t.

***

Armitage Hux swam away, panting for breath, water filling his mouth with every stroke; behind him, his father floated along with a cruel smile on his gaunt face.

“You’re a disappointment,” he hissed. “Your mother  _ died  _ because of you, you pathetic, worthless-”

“Leave me alone,” Hux swam harder, but Brendol snagged his leg and tugged him backwards. He disappeared below the surface with a splutter.

***

Rey surfaced again, gasping for breath, screaming in denial as the children began to chant around her.

“ _ A Wren flies through the meadow,” _

The mutt of Sandy bumped into her, and Rey flinched, ducking back under the water for a moment. 

“ _ It finds a Bridge over the sea, _ ” Nimaa’s mutt mocked, swooping closer on this pass.

“ _ So many things to know, _ ” Jaku trilled, giggling happy as he pulled on Rey’s foot, his voice loud and clear despite being underwater. 

“ _ So many things to be. _ ”

Ben Solo surfaced right in front of Rey and smiled at her.

“No.” Rey swam backwards, her feet pumping desperately as she closed her eyes and covered her ears.

“Join me,” Ben hissed, a clawed, blackened hand reaching out to force her head under water.

***

Rax held Poe back this time, when Poe lunged for a Peacekeeper, screaming in the forbidden language of Four. Sindian jumped up to help her partner.

***

Hux didn’t come up the third time.

***   
A cannon fired.

***

Rey kicked her way to the surface right as it did, gasping for air painfully before vanishing from sight, the water churning where she disappeared.

***

“It’s over!” Poe shouted, thrashing against Rax and Sindian’s arms. Maz’s hand was on his chest, keeping him from truly barreling forward. “Call it! It’s over!”

On screen, Rey didn’t come back up. 

“You have to call it!” Poe demanded of the small Snoke in the corner of his watch-screen. “You need a winner. You have to call it, you fucking-”

“Do I?” Snoke smiled cruelly, and tilted his head. “I’m not sure Ms. Kenobi is entirely marketable.”

“I’ll do anything,” Poe sobbed. Sindian’s hands tightened imperceptibly where she gripped his biceps. “ _ Please,  _ just call it, end this, please-”

***

Rey Kenobi surfaced once more, water streaming from her mouth as she coughed, her lips turning blue.

***

All of Panem watched, and waited, and cried. And then.

“ _ Ladies and Gentleman, the 49th Victor of the Hunger Games. _ ”

The first in history to not end a single life while in the arena.

***

Rey slipped below the surface again.

***

They finally fished her out, the electric current through the ladder the only thing keeping Rey in place.

She was placed unceremoniously on the table in the hovercraft’s Med Bay, the medics swarming to assist, attaching her to multiple machines -

No reading on the heart monitor.

Poe fought his way to her side before he was knocked away by a large Peacekeeper.

“Stay down,” the man hissed through his helmet. “You aren’t helping her like this. Stay. Down”

He surged to his feet again; was knocked down, again.

“Rey!” He screamed. “ _ Rey _ !”

Multiple arms held him back, and one of the medics began to resuscitate her.

Poe continued to scream as they pounded the rhythm of life back into her chest, back into her once-beating heart. Then, suddenly, the energy emptied from his body, and Poe sagged against the people holding him up, his chest constricting in panic.

Rey coughed, and water bubbled out. A medic shouted something, and they turned her on her side, her lips still blue, eyes still closed. Water poured out of her, then.

The sea had gone into Rey Kenobi as a child, and now it was coming back out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from Beginning (Spoiler if needed): There is only one victor for the 49th Games. 
> 
>  
> 
> So, uh.
> 
> That's the end of Rey's Games.
> 
> I know this came super late at night (I'm EDT), so I hope people read it....and thank you, as always, for reading and commenting. 
> 
> I definitely have way more planned, but, I'm thinking everyone might be gathering their pitchforks and are potentially uninterested in the next....50,000 words of this.
> 
>  
> 
> (PS/EDIT: Monday evening: sorry guys, totally forgot to update the chapter count when I posted last night!!!!!! This isn’t the end!!!)


	7. The Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Poe encourages Rey to act mentally unstable; frequent use of the word 'crazy'
> 
> WARNING: forced sedation; bad reaction to medicine
> 
> WARNING: seizures/convulsion

In the end, they had to Rebuild his hands.

Poe didn’t remember tearing them to shreds while punching the monitor, the glass separating him from Rey as they worked on her, the floor - but, they had to be Rebuilt. 

No one wanted a Victor who wasn’t whole.

***

“When can I see her?” Poe demanded of the Medic standing outside the room Rey had been pushed into after the hovercraft landed. She hadn’t been responsive as they pulled her away from his sight; Poe would give anything to see her eyes again.

“This wing is currently not open-”

“-to visitors, yeah. Yeah, I got that.” Poe dragged his fingers through his hair and scowled at the Medic. “That’s the answer your buddy gave me an hour ago. And the one I got three hours ago when we landed. So, when is the answer going to change?”

“The wing is currently not open to visitors.” The Medic eyed the nearest Peacekeeper warily, but a clamor at the end of the hallway had the guard turning away - Rose Tico had woken up again and had obviously broken out of her restraints. Poe could hear her clear from where he stood, could hear her screaming something about  _ you’ll burn with us,  _ and -

The Medic tugged on Poe’s sleeve as soon as the Peacekeeper turned away and started to jog towards Rose’s room, the source of the ruckus.

“She’s awake,” the Medic whispered, his accent sounding more Six and less Capitol, and Poe swallowed, hard. “She hasn’t spoken yet, but they repaired the damage from the last few hours in the arena. She’s stable, and her brain scan indicates no damage from having her air supply cut off for so long.”

“Thank you.” Poe squeezed the man’s arm before he was released. “Thank -”

The Peacekeeper walked back towards them, and the Medic smoothed his crisp, white uniform out primly. “Perhaps if you  _ waited  _ where you were supposed to?” He said with a clean Capitol accent. Poe nodded, pretended to scowl and walked towards the marked waiting area at the end of the corridor.

***

Snoke was the one to order Poe to visit Rey, two hours after the Medic gave him news.

He was dragged, unceremoniously, out of a light nap in the stiff-backed chairs in the waiting area; he woke up suspended between Peacekeepers, who pulled him towards the president, standing outside Rey’s door with a sneer.

“She won’t talk.” Snoke fiddled with his immaculate cuffs and lifted an eyebrow. 

“Did you go in there?” Poe’s voice was still hoarse from his screaming earlier that day. “Did you - did you talk to her? What did you say to her?”

“We had a ...one-sided conversation.” Snoke grimaced and folded his hands in front of his decrepit body. “So now, I’m relying on you, dear boy, to make her talk.”

“What if she doesn’t want to?” Poe scowled, refusing to wince as the Peacekeepers’ grip tightened on his arms. “I won’t  _ make  _ her do anything, you -”

A hand was around Poe’s throat suddenly; he gasped as Snoke squeezed with more force than should technically be possible from an old, withered man. “She needs to give her interview tomorrow morning. The Capitol needs its Victor. I don’t care if you have to  _ beat  _ it out of her. Make her talk, or I’ll make her pay.”

Poe wilted but nodded. 

***

He was pushed through the doors, which hissed shut behind him, Snoke’s eyes a physical presence on Poe’s back. 

Even with the solid steel between them, he continued feel the president’s gaze: a side effect of the videos Snoke had shared with him, only yesterday.

_ How much of his life was under surveillance?  _

No privacy, no safe harbor, not a single thing left for Poe Dameron. 

Nothing but the girl on the bed, whose knees were drawn up to her chest, her eyes wild and unfocused as they darted around the room, never landing on him.

“Sunshine.” Poe stumbled a bit when he saw her; how had it only been a week since he’d last been near her, since he’d been in the same room as her? It felt like an eternity, and something in his chest collapsed at seeing her awake. “Oh, fuck.” He walked to the side of her bed and sat in the provided chair, eyeing her monitors.

Heart rate, elevated. Blood pressure, low. Oxygen, low.

Poe had been Rebuilt enough times to know what was normal. And Rey’s readings were anything but.

“Sunshine?” He tried again, his voice cracking slightly. “Sweetheart?” He reached out slowly, and she didn’t reach back.

There wasn’t a time in his memory when she didn’t reach back.

***

When Shara first told Poe the story of Odysseus, he had asked his mother, “ _ But how did she know? _ ”

“ _ How did she know what, cariño? _ ”

“ _ That it was really her husband.” _

Shara had laughed throatily. “ _ The love of her life? How could Penelope forget him?” _

Poe had frowned down at the the fish he was supposed to be cleaning. “ _ Even though he was so much older? Even when so much had happened to him? Even when he wore his disguise? _ ”

“ _ She knew, my love. She knew. _ ”

***

Poe remembered how he had struggled with the idea that he was really free, was really safe, immediately after his Games, remembered thinking that the world was too bright, the sheets too clean, his body too unmarked, not matching the way he was ripped apart inside.

He cleared his throat.

“I’m here,” he whispered, wrapping his hands around hers. They were cold to the touch. He shivered. “Sweetheart, I’m - I’m real. I’m really here, and you’re really sa- alive. You’re alive, do you understand?” Water began to drip from his chin to his lap.

Poe hadn’t realized he’d been crying.

“I love you so much.” He didn’t care if Snoke heard him. He’d already heard him, after all, had already stolen the words from him, had stolen the brief moment he’d shared with Rey before she’d been taken from him. He’d stolen all their moments. If they were already taken, Poe had nothing left to lose. 

Except her. 

“I love you, and you’re here with me, and it’s real. You’re real, and - and it’s a miracle, is what it is.” His chest shuddered agonizingly when he tried to take a breath, and he was almost blind with tears, but he couldn’t stop holding her hands to wipe his eyes because it meant letting her go, again. “You’re really here, and you  _ lived.  _ I don’t need you to say anything right now because I can feel you” - he pressed her hands between his own, his voice spiking for a moment before settling back down to a murmur that allowed him the illusion that any of this was private, that any of this wouldn’t be used against him - “I can feel you, Sunshine. I’ve waited so many days to feel you again, and I love you.”

Rey turned to him towards the end, her eyes larger than normal in her thin face, the circles under her eyes not yet wiped away to Beauty Base Zero. Her hair hung around her face, lank and damp with an unhealthy sweat, her skin no longer marked by the sunburn she’d sported in the arena, healed under either a Medic or a Stylist’s hand.

“Poe.” She blinked, twice, her voice a crumbling whisper, and he sobbed, his head hanging down, tension flooding from his body. “ _ Poe _ .”

***

No one could agree on how long Ariadne had waited on her island before Dionysus arrived to whisk her away, to make her the wife of a god.

“ _ If he were a god, why didn’t he just … swoop in and save her earlier? _ ” Poe had hung off the side of the boat that morning, trailing his fingers in the brackish water under his boat while they drifted towards the eastern side of the cove. It was question that had always haunted him, since the day Shara told him the story.

“ _ Well, he was already a stranger to her. _ ” Rey had looked up from the sea glass he’d found for her that morning. The green light refracted against her freckled legs, and his mouth had gone dry when his eyes had followed the trail. “ _ Walking up to a woman who didn’t know him. She’d be less likely to reject him if she appreciated the rescue more. The longer she waited, the happier she’d be to have a strange man declaring his love for her.” _

_ “That’s...a little jaded.”  _ Rey had shrugged at his frown. “ _ He loved her, though. All the stories agree on that. He wouldn’t just let her suffer.” _

For a long moment, Rey had been quiet. Then, she sat the glass down on the deck next to her and turned her massive eyes on him. “ _ People do bad things to the ones they love all the time. I don’t see why gods should be any different. _ ”

***

He climbed on the bed, not caring if a Peacekeeper burst in and physically pulled him away from her. 

He climbed on the bed, fully aware of the potential consequences.

None came. At least, not right away.

“Sunshine.” He wrapped his arms around her, and her cold, shaking hands pressed to his shoulders. They fell towards the mattress, her blanket tangling around her thin, long legs as she struggled to pull herself closer to him. “Hey, hey” - he stroked limp hair from her pale face - “I’m here. Hey.”

“Poe.” She said his name again, the only thing she’d said, but he closed his eyes and basked in it all the same. And then. “Snoke.”

“What?” Poe opened his eyes to stare at her. “What about Snoke?”

Rey breathed shallowly for a few moments, her fingers twitching, a phantom pattern against his forearm, which rested between them. “Snoke came.”

“He did.” Poe leaned forward and brushed his nose against her forehead, fighting against the dual emotions inside of him: joy at being near her again, terror at what lay ahead. “He wants you to give the interview.”

“Interview,” Rey repeated distantly, her eyes fading again, somehow. 

“Yeah.” Poe lifted his hand to stroke her upper arm delicately, along the skin exposed by her thin hospital gown. “He - it’s customary for the Victor to do an interview. It can be short. And...it’s good if it doesn’t … go well.”

“What?” Rey’s eyes focused again, her expression as sharp as he remembered from Four.

“Some kinds of pain aren’t pretty,” he muttered darkly. “Some kinds of pain, they don’t want to see.”

***

He’d wonder, later, if it was all his fault.

Not for very long, of course. 

Poe Dameron  _ knew  _ it was his fault. After all, all of this was.

***

“Crazy,” Rey said firmly. Poe nodded, but then she pushed at him, angrily before sitting up.

“...Rey?” He rose with her, sitting at her side. Poe set his hand on her shoulder, but she shoved him off, causing him to freeze, his breath to catch in his throat.

“You think I’m crazy.” Rey wiped at her eyes; Poe wondered if that was the first time she’d cried since winning the Games. “You - you think I’m…” 

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Poe corrected gently, but Rey just scoffed. “I don’t. I just mean, if they think something is wrong, something that can’t be Rebuilt, they won’t -”

“You think I’m crazy,” Rey repeated again, her voice rising to the point of rage. She shook her head, her hair flying around her. “You - I  _ heard  _ you.”

“What?” His stomach plummeted. 

“I  _ saw  _ you,” Rey continued viciously, her hand - the vein still threaded with the IV - jabbing at the screen that displayed only the Capitol insignia. “On. On the - They played it.”

“Who played it?” Poe grabbed her hand, and Rey didn’t push him away, just went lax, slightly, the fight leaving her body quickly.

“Saw you talking to a woman.” Rey’s jaw clenched. Unclenched. “With orange hair.”

“I-”

“She was naked” Rey glowered at the bedsheet, and Poe let go of her hands because he didn’t deserve that tether, not when - when Rey had  _ seen  _ -

She started to pick at the blanket on her lap. “And another man. And Lando. You - you think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Poe insisted. “I just had to make them think you were, so they-”

“You said it  _ ran in the family. _ ” Poe had watched Rey starve, had watched her lose friends, had watched her  _ drown.  _ But she had never sounded this in pain. Not like this. It was his fault. “You - you think I’m crazy, like Papa.”

“I don’t think he’s crazy either.” Poe eyed the door, the corners of the room, looking for any potential cameras. Fuck it. Nothing was worth more than what Rey thought of him.

***

She was the only person left who thought he was good.

But maybe that died in the arena, too.

***

“He’s  _ not  _ crazy,” Rey hissed. “I don’t care what anyone says. He’s not.”

“Okay.” Poe nodded, quickly, his throat spasming. More water fell onto his lap. “Okay, he’s not, and you’re not. You’re not crazy. I don’t think you’re crazy.”

Rey studied his face long enough for it to be uncomfortable; but, whatever she saw made her relax, slightly, after perhaps two minutes of silent thought.

“Missed you,” she whispered. Her eyes closed. “And now I have to be...”

“Just for the Interview.” Poe leaned his forehead against her shoulder, selfishly needing the support. “And then we can go home.”

“Home,” Rey echoed.

***

Echo, whose love for a man killed her; the man whose beauty killed him in return.

***

“We can go out on the boat.” Poe mouthed a few kisses along her shoulder, and Rey’s fingers threaded through his curls tentatively, making something sweet and untouchable sing in his gut, a bittersweet longing which made no sense - not when what he was homesick for sat right next to him. “I can make you dinner. We can pick flowers.” 

Her fingers twitched and retreated. “No flowers.”

Poe lifted his head to watch her face, and saw that her expression had closed off. “No flowers,” he agreed softly. Rey hummed, distracted again by something he couldn’t see, and they sat together quietly for a few more minutes, Rey humming the whole time.

***

He wondered at the time why no one interrupted them, after he’d accomplished what they asked of him.

He wouldn’t wonder later.

***

“After the Interview,” Poe whispered. “We can get right on the train and go home. They won’t bother us for a while. I’ll say that I’m taking you home, to take care of you” - his voice broke under the earnestness of that one, simple desire - “And no one will want to stop that from happening. Snoke won’t have anything on us.”

“Okay.” Rey closed her eyes and nodded, shivering slightly. “But what about Ben?”

***

He wondered when the Capitol would stop finding new ways to break what was left of Poe Dameron.

***

“Old Ben will meet us at the station.” Poe shrugged with one shoulder. “My dad’s been taking care of him, and -”

“No.” Rey cut him off sharply. “I mean - what about Ben  _ Solo _ ? Did the Capitol just - stop caring about us?” He couldn’t say anything, so she kept going. “Will he even buy it if I’m acting...you know. He...he didn’t seem like he would care, no matter how broken I was, as long as he got me, in the end.”

“Rey.” Poe’s heartbeat picked up uncomfortably, to the point where he was sure it could be seen through his shirt, the pulse loud enough that he could hear it in his own ears. “Rey, Ben’s dead.”

“No, he isn’t.” She scowled at him, petulant and cross, not unlike the way she looked when he’d intentionally pretend to misunderstand a concept in their notes from school.

“He died, Sunshine.” Poe coughed dryly, eyeing the door again. No one came through it. “Hux hit him with an axe before the dam broke. He -”

“There wasn’t a cannon,” Rey pointed out coldly, and Poe stared at her in shock.

“There was.” He spoke slowly, carefully. “Just. The dam broke, so you couldn’t hear it.”

“There wasn’t.” Rey’s jaw set stubbornly. “He’s alive. I saw him. In the water.”

“It was only you and Hux in the water.” Poe winced as he recalled it. “What you saw was a mutt.”

“I saw him here,” Rey’s voice rose painfully, higher and louder than he’d ever heard her. “I  _ saw  _ him.”

“That’s impossible.” Poe pushed himself to face her more fully, and Rey scooted back on the bed away from him. He reached out with trembling hands, and she flinched away. “Rey, no one’s come in or out of your room except the Medics and Snoke.”

“I know what I saw.” Rey closed her eyes and shook her head. “He was  _ here.  _ In the bed next to mine.”

There was only one bed in the room.

***

Rey wouldn’t speak for a few minutes, and eventually, Poe tried to speak again.

“Rey.” She didn’t look over. “Rey, he’s dead. I swear to you, Ben Solo is dead.”

“He’s here.” Rey’s eyes didn’t open. “He’s not dead.”

“He is,” Poe insisted. “Rey, please, I’ll - I can show you the footage -”

“I don’t want to watch that,” she snapped, voice brittle, and Poe winced from his mistake. “I can’t - not again -” She clapped her hands over her ears and shook her head. “No.”

“Rey?” He tugged on her wrist, and Rey pulled away from him. 

“He’s alive -” Her eyes opened, and Poe noticed that her eyes had gone very, very far away; he realized that even though she looked at him, she didn’t know he was there at all. 

Her heart rate accelerated dangerously, the machines starting to beep.

“No, no, no.” Rey curled in on herself, her knees to her chest, her face tucked against them, her hands over her ears as she sobbed, “No, no - It’s - it’s not real -”

“It’s not.” Poe spoke as soothingly as possible even as the world around him collapsed. “It’s not real, Rey, it’s not happening - Ben Solo is -”

“Don’t!” - Rey screamed the word - “Tell me I’m crazy.”

“You’re not-”

“I’m not  _ fucking  _ crazy-”

“You aren’t-”

She stared out into the room, her eyes wide and unseeing as she screamed, an unbroken sound that shattered what little control Poe had left. 

“Help!” Poe shouted at the door, jumping up from the bed as he eyed Rey’s monitors. Her heart rate was nearing 200, and her other readings skewing at a terrifying rate. “Rey, please, breathe. Just breathe for me, sweetheart, c’mon-”

Rey lashed out when he reached for her, striking him hard in the shoulder; Poe leapt back with a shout of surprise, not pain, but it was as though she’d pressed a button -

Peacekeepers, not Medics flooded the room.

“Stand back,” one ordered, gripping Poe by the shirt. “For your own safety.”

“Fuck off,” he snarled, shoving at them.

One of the Peacekeepers readied a syringe, and Poe balked. “What the fuck is that?”

“Stay back for your own safety,” the Peacekeeper holding him repeated, and Poe watched in horror as the needle vanished into Rey’s neck.

She fell back against the bed without so much as a whimper.

Then, she began to convulse.

***

“You killed her,” Poe screamed, kicking the Peacekeeper holding him away and lunging for the one who’d drugged Rey. “I’ll fucking -”

They’d forgotten that no matter how hard the Capitol tried to break Poe Dameron, he’d been a Victor for a reason.

He took down three Peacekeepers before the Medics arrived to stabilize Rey, and sedate him.

***

“It was a bad reaction,” Finn explained to him softly. “The … sedative was a combination of a few drugs, ones that don’t exactly play well with others, and the Peacekeeper didn’t know what she already had in her system. The Peacekeepers only have one kind of sedative on hand. She’s....”

“If you say, she’s  _ going to be okay,  _ I’ll never speak to you again.” Poe stared up at the ceiling from where he was strapped to the bed in the Medical Center. He was shocked they’d allowed Finn to come see him. 

Maybe they thought if the news came from a friend, he’d be less likely to lash out.

“Don’t you think it’s terribly convenient that she’d react like that?” Poe whispered. “They control everything. Why not that?.”

Finn didn’t have an answer to that.

He did, however, reach out to brush away the saltwater that had collected in Poe’s hair.

***

“Rey?” Lando leaned forward to catch Rey’s eyes, which were staring out into the audience. “I know that was hard to watch. Could you tell us what’s on your mind?”

Rey twitched and shrugged, visibly shaking on the camera. Other than her terror, though, she remained as beautiful and whole in appearance as ever; Kare had put her in a long, green dress, kept her make-up simple. Her hair, though. Her hair had changed.

Poe didn’t think it had ever been cut when they were growing up; Rey Kenobi had hair like the sea grass that waved gently on the plains outside her grandfather’s house, long, tangled, brown. 

But after her Rebuilding, after her seizure, they’d cut it. 

***

“She kept pulling at it,” the Medic said coldly when Poe stood, mouth open in horror, at the foot of her hospital bed. Rey was staring blankly at the wall across from her, her monitor showing more stabilized readings, now. 

“You couldn’t just pin it back?” Poe asked weakly. “You had to - it’s all  _ gone. _ ”

“Should you even be out of bed?” The Medic sneered at him, and Poe stopped asking questions.

***

Rey Kenobi’s hair didn’t quite brush her shoulders, the waves cutting off abruptly, as though shorn with a blunt razor. She didn’t try to push it back behind her ears, didn’t flip it or push it to the side or run it through her fingers thoughtfully as she talked.

“It was hard to watch,” she echoed, nodding once. “It …”

“I can’t imagine, losing the person you love like that,” Lando continued, and Rey’s face twitched. She didn’t say anything right away.

***

“Tell her.” Snoke stood next to Rey’s bed, and Poe sat stiffy in the chair, eyeing the Peacekeepers flanking the president warily. “Tell her what happens if this goes poorly.”

Poe opened his mouth, his throat working desperately, but nothing came out. 

He didn’t have to say anything. Rey Kenobi was the smartest person he knew.

She could figure out what Snoke meant, sedated or not.

***

Poe wondered if he really had doomed her by saving her. Rey Kenobi sat under the blinding lights, looking too beautiful, too unbroken in her unassuming dress, her delicate beauty too desirable still.

But then, she tilted her head towards the camera, and then looked over her shoulder. When she looked back, her lower lip trembled noticeably.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Lando asked kindly, reaching out to grip the arm of Rey’s chair. 

“W-where...where’s Ben?” Rey twitched slightly, her eyes unfocusing. 

“Where-”

“You said I lost him.” Rey blinked slowly and wrapped her thin arms around herself as murmurs ricocheted around the audience. “Where did he go?” Her voice broke tragically, her eyes wide and unseeing as she stared wildly around the studio.

A man in the third row sobbed loudly, clutching the person next to him; more than one audience member dabbed at their eyes with multicolored handkerchiefs. 

“Ben is dead, Rey,” Lando said gently, the concern in his voice making him sound more real than he had in forty years. He took her hands carefully in his own, tugging at her slowly. “He died in the arena. We just watched it.”

“No.” Rey shook her head, pulling away again, pulling her long, smooth legs to her chest as she trembled, hands tearing at her short hair. “N- _ no,  _ he’s not. I saw him here, in the Capitol. Where’s Ben? Ben?!” She wailed this time, and Lando waved his hand at the cameras, hissing something about  _ cut, cut! _

The audience cried loudly, then, in one voice, as Rey wept bitterly in her seat, screaming whenever Lando or any of his assistants tried to speak to her. Poe rushed forward, trying to get to her, unsure now if this was an act or not - but the Peacekeepers got there first and blocked his way.

Right after they sedated her, Rey still sobbing brokenly, Poe managed to elbow his way to her side. He checked her face cautiously for any sign that this was an act, like he’d encouraged, but all he saw was terror, the same terror she’d worn in the hospital after waking up.

The drugs kicked in finally, and Rey sagged in his arms; he snarled at anyone who tried to take her away, carrying her off stage and away from the Capitol who now saw her as the little girl who’d lost her love, and then her mind.

He prayed that it would be enough. 

***

Not even Snoke could keep Poe Dameron in the Capitol after that interview. The citizens clamored too loudly for Rey Kenobi, for her grief and for her pain, too many demands to have the Games suspended, to find out exactly what the granddaughter of Ben Kenobi was doing in District Four, and how, exactly, the grandson of Vader had ended up in the Games.

Rey would only respond to Poe, so Poe went back to Four with her.

It was the first time that he was allowed to return home immediately after the Games ended.

***

When they were on the train, Rey disappeared into her rooms briefly. Peacekeepers followed her in lock-step - the president had ordered that she not be left alone for even a second.

_ “To protect our asset, _ ” he’d purred, stroking Rey’s thin cheek as she waited for the train to pull in. 

(Capitol citizens had lined up for blocks to watch them drive to the train station, and Poe had been forced to blow kisses and wave and smile the whole time, when he longed to be wrapped around Rey, shielding her from their eyes).

After an awkward dinner that consisted of Maz eating half a fish, Poe eating a single bite, and Rey not even blinking, they’d walked back to the sleeping cars, the Peacekeepers close behind. Maz patted Rey’s arm fondly before walking into her room, and Poe had seen the old woman make a rude hand gesture towards the Peacekeepers before her doors closed.

“Stay with me?” Poe whispered at his door, and Rey stopped walking and nodded. “Thank you.”

He opened the doors for them, the track barely audible under the swaying floor of the train, letting Rey walk through first. Poe moved to follow her, but stopped when a Peackeeper walked forward.

“No.” He gripped the door frame and scowled. “You can wait outside the door.”

“We have orders to-”

“Fuck your orders.” Poe fought against how badly he wanted to haul back and punch the guard in his stupid, shiny helmet. “She won’t be alone. That’s all Snoke said. She can’t be alone. She won’t be alone - I’ll be with her. The whole night.”  _ As long as she wants me.  _ “Rey won’t get any rest with you hanging over her.”

The Peacekeeper stepped forward again, unholstering his weapon, but Poe snorted. “What. Are you going to shoot me?” He walked forward, right up against the end of the gun. “Then shoot me. You’ll have to walk over my body into that room.”

He prayed Rey wasn’t watching.

The guard lowered the weapon and gestured to his partner. They both stationed themselves on either side of the door, upright and at attention.

“That’s what I thought.” Poe walked between the Peacekeepers and slammed the door shut behind him, his heart pounding in his chest. “ _ Fuck. _ ” The word slipped out as a whisper, but he didn’t let loose with everything he was thinking, not now that he understood he was always being watched. The rest of his life, he’d be watched - but somehow, having the Peacekeepers looming over them physically while they tried to sleep (sleep being the rarest of commodities for Victors) felt like an invasion too far. 

Rey was curled up on the bed already, facing the window. The setting sun reached through the window, bathing her in a soft orange light and making the room feel less like a prison, even if that’s what it was.

“I’m going to lie down next to you.” Poe cleared his throat and stepped out of his shoes. He didn’t bother to undress, just laid down behind Rey and leaned forward until his forehead brushed against her back, between her shoulder blades. 

Rey didn’t say anything, but her breathing suggested she was still awake. Poe had a thousand things to say to her racing inside him, a thousand ways to say  _ thank you for coming back  _ and  _ I still don’t think you’re crazy  _ and  _ what did you mean by ‘you saw him’ _ ?

Instead, he set his hand gently on her bare upper arm and began to stroke up and down. “You don’t need to say anything,” he whispered. “You’ll never owe me anything. I’ll never expect anything from you.”  _ I’m not the Capitol. No matter how hard they tried, I never became Capitol.  _ “I love you, and I’ll wait for you.”

***

Every spring, when the world above bloomed, and flowers raced forward and vines uncurled and trees reached just a little bit higher; every spring, when the birds returned to their homes, and the bees began to buzz and animals awoke and walked through the world once more, there was one being who did not rejoice. 

Hades, with all the diamonds and gold and silver at his command, the souls of every dead creature in his kingdom, felt the spring return, and waited for the first leaf to fall. 

Once, Poe wondered what Hades did when his wife was away, how he felt.

He didn’t wonder anymore.

***

“You always believed I’d come back,” Poe whispered into the dark, his voice slightly muffled. “You waited for me when I was away.” 

He pressed his face against her neck, his eyes shut, his heartbeat slow and steady in his chest. “It’s my turn to wait. And I’ll wait as long as I have to.”

Rey turned in his arms, still silent, her eyes slightly distant. But she turned, and Poe felt warmer than he had in days.

Poe wrapped his arm around her and pressed his lips into her hair. “I’ll wait for you to come back to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next arc would be Rey/Poe healing in Four (
> 
> with some....fluff??? And maybe some nice, consensual smut? if people have any interest in /that/ particular storyline? It'd be very much focused on tenderness/intimacy and not on explicit romps/kink/etc)
> 
>  
> 
> aaaaand then the Quarter Quell, as long as people want that Part Two


	8. District Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Public, implied executions
> 
> WARNING: Continued ableist depiction/references to mental illness as "crazy"
> 
> WARNING: multiple references to suicide/suicidal ideation (no self harm takes place in the chapter)
> 
> WARNING: Poe gets high in the Capitol
> 
> WARNING: Implied sexual encounters in the Capitol - one woman asks him to roleplay in a very disturbing way.

When the train pulled into the station, Poe expected his father to be waiting for them, and just his father. After all, Kes was the only person who’d ever bothered to show up to collect him before.

Instead, what seemed like half of District Four was lined up from the platform, down the street, and all the way down to the Justice Building. It was eerily silent as they walked down the stairs, Rey’s hand held tight in Poe’s, the Peacekeepers close behind Maz, who marched at the heels in a firm, defensive proximity.

No one clapped. No one cheered.

Half the district stood as silent witness as Rey, Poe, and Maz waited for the small pinewood box to be unloaded; while Poe had never been able to look at the coffins in the past without cringing, Rey unflinchingly put her hand on the lid and walked alongside it as it was carried over to the Martins, who stood, chins high, waiting for their son.

Rey hadn’t spoken for the duration of the ten hour train ride, but after a protracted silence where Sandy’s parents stared at her, and she looked back at them, Rey’s shoulders crumpled slightly while she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

The apology was Poe’s job, technically, Poe and Maz, the Mentors who failed to bring Aleksander Martin home. But Rey gave it, and Rey meant it. 

Dione Martin took a step forward, her bronze hair the same shade as the boy’s who lay in the box. Rey didn’t flinch, but Poe took an anxious step to mirror Sandy’s mother’s. It turned out to be unnecessary.

“We’re all sorry.” Dione wrapped her arms around Rey, who stood unbowed, if slightly trembling, like a reed in the wind. Poe couldn’t see Rey’s face, but he could see Geon Martin following his wife’s example to embrace the Victor. 

“I didn’t think he would-” Rey continued to apologize, but Geon shook his head and shushed her, eyeing the Peacekeepers behind Rey warily. His eyes settled on Poe.

He realized with a jolt that Geon included him in the figure of untrusted people, those who would hurt Rey if she suffered a misstep. Before he could even think of a way to add on to Rey’s apology, a group of women, older than Maz, in the crowd raised their hands. 

They hooked their thumbs together, left in front of right, the four fingers of each hand curled and pointed towards their shoulders. It looked like a bird; it looked like something very old, something that tugged on the corner of Poe’s memory.

“A starbird,” Maz whispered at Poe’s elbow. He looked down at the diminutive woman, who looked onward grimly. “She’s been reborn.”

“I thought starbirds needed fire to -” Poe began, but he was cut off as the Peacekeepers who flanked the Victors marched forward towards the women who’d made the symbol. 

It was too late though, as the rest of the crowd, stretching from the platform to the Justice Building, mimicked the hand gesture, absolutely silent as they saluted Rey, the first Victor to win without killing. 

“The citizens of District Four must return to their homes,” a cold voice announced over the speaker system that had once been used to signal massive tidal waves. “Curfew will begin in one hour.”

The citizens of District Four did not move. 

“Citizens, disperse,” the voice repeated. “Curfew begins in one hour.”

The women who’d made the gesture first were pulled forward, into the middle of the train station’s courtyard; Poe watched in a mixture of denial and horror as the Peacekeepers unholstered their weapons. The women didn’t flinch, but Maz whispered, “ _ No _ .”

Rey turned around, Geon Martin desperately trying to get her to face towards him again, and watched as the first Peacekeeper pulled the trigger.

***

The red phone that sat in the corner of Poe’s living room, untouched for most of the year, rang five weeks after they’d returned home, disturbing the early morning. His father had already gone out to fish, and Poe had a later start than usual.

The face that the phone rang during a time when he usually wasn’t home was a potent reminder of the eyes always on him.

He debated not answering, but the shrill ringing continued well past a normal length of time. With a sigh, he dragged himself across the carpet and grabbed the receiver, putting it close to his ear.

“Hello?”

“ _ Mr. Dameron. _ ” Snoke’s voice came through with an eerie hiss, and Poe straightened up subconsciously. “ _ How are things in District Four? _ ”

“They’re fine. Sir.” Poe grit his teeth and waited for the shoe to drop. “...Is there something you need?”

He expected an invitation to the Capitol; what he got made his blood run cold.

“ _ Is there something wrong with the other houses in the Victors’ Village, my boy? _ ”

“No, sir.” Poe placed his hand on the wall in front of him, considered punching it. “Why?”

“ _ Don’t play the fool with me. _ ” Poe closed his eyes and willed the conversation to end. “ _ Is there a reason why our sweet Victor hasn’t moved into her home yet? The one so generously provided to her by the Capitol? _ ”

“I don’t know, sir.” Poe spat the words out. “Her grandfather is sick, though, and she might not want to disrupt his current environment. If I had to guess.”

“ _ Yes, I know all about Obi-Wan’s poor health. Such a tragedy. _ ” Not for the first time, Poe suspected the Capitol’s involvement in the deterioration of Old Ben. “ _ At least you’ll be there for our Rey when he passes. Won’t you, Mr. Dameron?”  _ Poe didn’t respond, but Snoke chuckled calmly on his end. “ _ Of course, if you can’t support her, there are many in the Capitol who would be happy to-” _

“No, sir.” Poe cut him off with a barely contained snarl. He set his jaw and tilted his head back, scowling at the ceiling. “I’ll - I’ll make sure she moves. Soon. Just give me a few days?”

“ _ A few days, then. With her own health what it is, especially after that...nasty little outbreak of violence at the station when you returned - I’d hate for Ms. Kenobi to suffer any more than she already has. _ ”

“Yes, sir.” Poe’s hand turned to a fist where it rested on the wall; he pounded it softly against the wood. “I understand completely, sir.”

“ _ I’m sure you do. And, I’m sure you understand that if she  _ does  _ suffer another...setback...there are plenty of rehabilitory centers here in the Capitol that would be pleased to take her in. On a more permanent basis. _ ”

“Yes, sir.” Poe’s throat burned with rage and unshed tears, but he managed to keep his composure. Just barely. “Thank you. Sir.”

“ _ You have three days, son. And - when you are done, please do keep an eye out for an invitation to the Capitol. I believe Tyrannus was most impressed with you during the Games, and would like an audience.” _

Fucking Dooku.

“Excellent, sir. I look forward to it.”

Snoke hung up without another word, and Poe dropped the receiver as though it had shocked him. 

Then, calmly, without so much as blinking, he put his fist through the wall.

***

He sat out on the water later that day; Poe had ripped his boat apart, from bow to stern and all through the cabin until he found a number of strange, spider-like devices. 

Bugs.

He’d destroyed all of them under the butt of his knife and thrown them overboard, the way he had every morning since his return from the Capitol. After Snoke’s message to him in his office, Poe had zero interest in being listened to, or watched, out where he sought privacy.

His mornings had been lonely of late. With Obi Wan’s health what it was, and Rey still slowly recovering from what she’d seen and what had been done to her, his trips out on the water were solitary and silent. Not that he entirely minded; seeing Rey brought a twist of guilt to his gut, one he didn’t quite want to examine for fear of it ruining whatever was left between them. Her Reaping had directly been his fault, after all. There was no way to deny it now, and there was no way Poe would be able to stop himself from confessing it to her if he saw her swimming, if she swam up to his boat.

Now, it was nearing noon, and he sat by himself, watching the western horizon the way he did when he was a boy and thought his mother might come sailing back. He wasn’t so naive now, not after Snoke’s words haunted him, accusing his mother of taking flight and abandoning him. 

Shara Bey had been many things: Victor, wife, mother, survivor, sailor. She was quick with a joke and filled with unbridled energy, something Poe replicated in his youth, before his own Games. 

Her lovely face had been somewhat marred by a scar stretching from above her eyebrow to her chin, from a wound that took her eye. She remarkably refused the new eye promised by the Capitol and had instead worn an eyepatch, something that never seemed to both her or her husband. Poe, personally, thought it made Shara look dashing, a bit like the pirates from the stories Maz would tell when she was in a good enough mood before her own husband passed.

What he remembered most about his mother was her unwavering bravery. Once, when a coastal storm had battered the District, the swell catching unsuspecting fishermen out on the water, Shara had spent a nail-biting fourteen hours out on her boat, dragging over three dozen men to safety. She’d been hailed as a hero by the District, and the Capitol had never acknowledged the near disaster had even taken place.

Sailing made him feel close to his mother after her disappearance and alleged death; she’d shown him how to tie knots when he was three years old, had shown him how to sail a boat when he was seven, and by the time she disappeared when he was eight, she’d whisper to him when they were side by side that he could do this all on his own now.

He hadn’t taken it as a warning.

Everything Snoke had claimed about his mother slammed into him as he watched the horizon: that she’d run away, that she’d  _ left  _ him, that she’d died a coward. 

Poe hung his head between his knees and didn’t pull up on the anchor until the sun had begun to set.

***

The next morning, Poe left at the usual time. He spent the usual fifteen minutes de-bugging his boat - not that there were any conversations happening that needed to be recorded - and set sail. He had two days left on his Snoke-imposed countdown, but he didn’t relish the idea of his first conversation with Rey after the train station being a demand that she move into the quiet, empty houses of Victors’ Village with him, with the alternative being a one-way ticket to the Capitol.

He fiddled with a length of rope after he’d thrown the anchor overboard, debating how to phrase it to her. Everything that came to mind when he thought about Rey bordered on desperate romantic declarations and morbid apologies that bordered on the confessional. She’d be at school by now, he thought grimly when he eyed the sun overhead. He’d somehow wasted three hours already, just sitting here, lost in the mire of his own thoughts.

And then, he saw something floating in the water.

His stomach curled unpleasantly, cold soaking through his veins when he realized what, or who it was.

“Rey?” Poe stood, the boat rocking slightly as he sprinted to the edge of the boat. “Rey!”

***

There was a story Shara told Poe about two lovers dedicated to one another despite living on either side of a strait. 

The brave Leander would cross the waterway each night to woo the beautiful Hero, who waited in a tower. Convincing her that no priestess of Aphrodite should remain a virgin, they eventually made love.

They were happy for a time, Shara insisted, but Leander would have to steal away before the dawn every morning, so none could discover their love. And each night, Hero would light a lamp in her window, guiding Leander through the waves, across the water, and to her side once more.

On a stormy night, Leander was adamant to still visit his love, and crossed the dangerous water in the dark, guided only by the soft light given to him by Hero.

But - and the stories differed, here and there, Shara said, whether it was Poseidon in a fit of rage who stirred the waters, or the Wind in an act of cruelty who blew too hard - the lamp went out while Hero unknowingly waited for her love who would never arrive.

Leander sank beneath the waves, lost in the Hellespont, and his body washed ashore in front of Hero’s tower.

She threw herself into the sea and drowned as well.

“ _ That doesn’t make any sense, Mama, _ ” Poe had exclaimed when Shara had finished. “ _ If he was dead, why did she have to die too? _ ”

Shara had kissed the side of his head and didn’t answer. But Poe had always wondered what it would be like to love someone so much that when they died, the only solution was to die at their side, in the same way, no matter how violent.

***

“Rey?” Poe screamed, his voice tearing on the word. 

She didn’t move: her dress tangled around her in the water, her hair a cloud around her head. While she was easily twenty feet from his boat, he could see that she wasn’t moving, that her eyes were closed, that her arms were outstretched.

“Fucking-” Poe ripped his sweater over his head, kicked his boots off and dove into the water without second thought, the chain of his necklace twisting around his neck as he swam. It had been years since he elected to swim, only going into the water when he needed to pull up a tangled trap or check something on his boat. But he cut through the water as easily as ever, fighting the current as he headed in the direction he’d seen Rey.

The salt stung his eyes, the cold air cutting at his lungs. It was unseasonably cold for October, the waves choppier than normal, colder than he remembered. Still, he swam, squinting against the burn in his eyes to find her.

He slowed right as he neared her body, and he reached out, terrified of what he might find.

Instead, Rey slowly smiled, her eyes still cold, skin still ghastly pale. She bent her legs slowly, until she righted herself in the water, and began to tread. Her hair, short and ragged, was plastered to her head, giving her the appearance of a drowned woman. 

But she opened her eyes and looked right at him, even as Poe fought against hyperventilation.

“You found me,” she whispered, the water running down her neck in rivulets. “I knew you would.”

***

“Snoke wants you to move.” Poe found no way to stop the words from slipping out when they were back on the boat, Rey wrapped in a blanket from the bed in the cabin. “He called me.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” Rey’s eyes cut through him, and Poe swallowed, hard. 

“No,” he admitted. “I - I don’t have a good excuse for that.”

“You got me out of that shithole.” Rey closed her eyes again and rested her head on the hull of the ship. “You made me survive, and for what? So you could just avoid me?”

“That’s not-”

“You still think I’m crazy.” Rey laughed, a brittle noise, and Poe could only stare at her. Her hair was still drying, but now that she was safely out of the water, he could fully notice the way her bones jutted out against her skin, the paleness that he’d attributed to the temperature of the water really a reflection of her health. “You’re embarrassed of me.”

“Stop saying things that aren’t true.” Poe frowned, but Rey didn’t open her eyes. “That’s - none of that is true.”

“You wish I’d died.”

Poe didn’t respond to that, not when there was a small kernel of truth to it. She’d be able to tell he was lying.

When he didn’t respond, Rey swallowed and nodded, her expression pinching, her eyes still closed. “Don’t worry about it, Dameron. I wish that too.”

“Don’t say that.” Poe abandoned his perch at the sail to kneel in front of her, and he put his hand on her shin. She didn’t flinch away from it, at least. “If you had died, I would have died.”

She snorted. “Poetic.”

“No. I mean it.” Poe felt queasy, but he forced himself to say it out loud. “I’d been stashing my sleeping pills while you were in the arena. I was - I was ready. If you had-”

Rey’s eyes opened, stormy in color today, and she grabbed his hand where it rested on her leg. She squeezed with a frightening strength, her brows slanting downwards as she scowled. “That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

They looked at each other, Poe miserable and Rey furious, until she relaxed and he blinked.

“Can you even say shit like that?” Rey scoffed and looked over her shoulder, although all that was there was the hull of the boat. “Aren’t they always-” she shrugged, a twitch of her shoulders, and then her hands drifted to her hair. She tugged at the wet strands anxiously, until Poe reached out slowly to grip her wrists, to pull her hands away from her scalp.

“Hey.” He spoke softly, tears stinging at his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

“I-I found...something in Obi’s house. They - they’re  _ always  _ \- they’re  _ still…  _ I--” Rey shook her head, her body visibly trembling, and Poe made a soft noise of concern before scooting closer to her, gently guiding her head to rest against his chest while he knelt. 

“No one’s watching,” he promised, thankful that he could at least make this promise now. “I got rid of the bugs myself. There’s - there’s nothing on this boat for them to watch you with. It’s just you and me. It’s only us.”

Rey nodded weakly, her hands still shaking, the side of her face pressed against his chest. Poe breathed as calmly as he could, in through his nose, and out through his mouth.

“Breathe with me,” he murmured. “In and out.” She did, and they sat like that for several minutes, as Poe’s own heart settled, and Rey began to relax slightly in his arms.

“Sorry.” She pushed away from him after a while, and Poe immediately felt bereft. “I - Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“What are you sorry for?” Rey pushed some of the wet hair back from her face with a twitch of her nose, causing Poe to smile sadly at the familiar, albeit changed, expression.

“I still love you.” He cleared his throat in embarrassment, as that wasn’t quite what he meant to say.

“...Why is that a  _ sorry _ ?”

“Because.” He studied his hands to avoid looking at Rey. “It’s what got you into this mess in the first place. It’s why I’ve stayed away. You only-”

“If you tell me I was Reaped because you fell in love with me, I will throw you off this boat.” Rey tugged on his sleeve, forcing him to look up, and she scowled at him ferociously. “What a load of bullshit. My brain broke, Dameron, but my fucking common sense is still there somewhere, and even  _ I  _ know that’s a bunch of illogical bullshit.”

She looked so much like the Rey from three months ago that Poe laughed despite the darkness of her expression. At first, it only made her scowl deepen, but eventually the corners of her mouth twitched.

“And  _ I’m  _ the crazy one,” she snorted, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“I don’t think you are.” Poe sighed and dragged his hands through his own wet hair. The water had soaked uncomfortable into the cables of his sweater at this point, and he was debating just taking it off; but, the extra layer of protection it gave him felt more than physical at the moment. It was a brief obstacle to Rey’s keen gaze as she looked at him, and through him. “Not any crazier than me, or Finn, or any of the other Victors. The Games, they-”

“Yeah.” Rey nodded when he stopped talking. Then, she knocked him backwards. “I don’t care if they Reaped me because you asked me to run away. My only regret is that I didn’t say yes.”

“What?” Poe stared at her. “You knew?”

“I thought, why would Poe be avoiding me?” She didn’t answer his question directly, her eyes distant again. “What did I do? Does he think I actually -” Rey shook her head. “Then I remembered. Back in the hospital, when they were showing me...you.” Poe flinched at the reminder. “There was a video of us, on this boat. And Snoke probably thought I was too far gone to put it together, but I did.”

“I never meant for-”

“Of course you never meant for them to hear it. Of course you aren’t responsible for what they did. Honestly, Poe.” She smirked at him for a second, her eyes briefly focusing. “Idiot.”

“No one’s arguing that.”

Rey laughed this time, shaking her head and staring out towards the shore. “If you  _ had  _ been by to see me, you would know that I really do have bad days, now.”

“Yeah?” Poe frowned and held his hand out to her, and Rey took it.

“Bad moments, even on good days.” She shivered, her eyes still strangely unfocused. “Bad hours, mixed with good moments. They kicked me out of school.”

“What?” Poe’s voice rose in indignation. “But you were almost done!”

“Mhm.” Rey shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “A few of the girls thought it would be funny to pour water on my head when I wasn’t expecting it.”

Poe’s eye twitched, anger surging in his gut. “They fucking what?”

“I stabbed one of them with a pen.” Rey didn’t blink, and her expression didn’t waver. “I didn’t even hesitate. Three inches, into the side of her neck.” She didn’t squeeze his hand back. “I paid for the hospital bill. And they told me to never come back.”

“It was their fault,” he protested weakly. “They - they should never have-”

“It might not have been cruelty, what they did,” Rey said quietly, shrugging again. “But, they’re right. I’m dangerous.” She finally squeezed his hand. “We both are.”

***

“We’ll just have to teach each other,” Rey declared the next morning.

She’d knocked on the side of his boat this time, her tongue between her teeth as she laughed up at his surprised expression. Because he  _ was  _ surprised. Surprised to see her in the water despite what had happened to her; surprised to see her smiling, surprised that she’d forgiven him so quickly after he hadn’t spoken to her for five weeks.

“Teach each other?” Poe looked up from the knots with a genuine smile. He’d found all the bugs as usual this morning, and he felt lighter than he had in a long time. He and Rey had moved some of her belongings into the Victors’ Village after explaining the situation to Old Ben.

Her grandfather had refused to move, mumbling something about the forest and home and birds; it was only the tug of Poe at her sleeve that allowed Rey to turn around and walk towards the Village.

Now, she looked slightly less burdened in the early morning light, and Poe could smile at her. 

“Teach each other, now that I’m banned from school, and you’re too old.” Rey stuck her tongue out at him. “Or did you think I forgot your birthday was next week?” He groaned, and Rey started to sing playfully at him. “Nineteen, nineteen, Poe’s going to be nineteen-”

“You’re a pest.” He reached over the side of the boat to splash water at her, causing it to rock dangerously. 

“You love me.” Rey flitted away from the splash, spinning gracefully with a bright smile. 

“I really do.” Poe cleared his throat and steadied himself, his hand on the side rail. 

“I love you too, you know.” Rey spun towards him, bumping into him for a second. “Even if I’m  _ not all there, these days. _ ”

“Where did you hear that?” Poe caught her and spun her back towards him, laughing lightly as she danced around him.

“Some women in the Market.” Rey hummed and kept spinning, her slip flaring out around her. She’d taken to wearing the thin dress in the water instead of her suit; when he asked her about it, she shrugged and didn’t give an answer. Rey closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “They said I was a  _ poor dear  _ and they thought I  _ wasn’t all there.  _ Weird way to say crazy, but.” Rey swayed a little more, but this time Poe caught her, his hands anxious on her hips.

“It’s not true.” 

Rey grabbed his wrists with a laugh. “Who gives a shit if it’s true.” She combed her fingers through his curls with a bright smile. “The things they say about Poe Dameron aren’t true. But, they’re also very true” The words sank like lead in his stomach. She rubbed her nose against his jaw while wrapping her arms around his neck. “I don’t believe them, though. They’re not  _ my _ true.”

Poe wrapped his arms around her waist in response, eyes closing as he fought back the wave of emotion.

“That probably doesn’t make any sense,” Rey whispered into his neck.

“It does, Sunshine.” Poe ran his fingers through her short, tangled hair. “It makes sense. You know what else is my true?”

“Hm?”

“I love you more than anything.” He felt a small rush of dizzying power every time he said it, this freedom to declare he loved her, out here on the water where they were, for a brief moment, untouchable. “And I’ll always choose you, no matter what the old biddies at the Market say.”

***

Once, when he was younger and debatably stupider, he’d thought that the key to happiness would be to have Rey Kenobi notice him, to love him back, to choose him.

Now, he understood.

It was that he chose  _ her  _ this time. He’d only ever chosen her; he was allowed to choose her. 

Poe chose Rey, and that was the truest true imaginable.

***

“I like our true,” Rey whispered as they swayed back and forth, tangled around each other.

“Me too, Sunshine.”

When she kissed him, slower than the water moved beneath them, Poe cursed under his breath and gripped her tighter, as if he could anchor her to this good moment a little longer.

***

The good moment would fade quickly.

Rey and Poe walked back to the Victors’ Village, hand in hand, Rey’s cheeks still flushed from the “lesson” she’d demanded on the boat.

Poe flushed at the memory too, of how he taught her every filthy word he could recall in the forbidden language of Four, whispering them into her ear as her fingers curled around his elbows.

They walked back, happy for a moment, and not caring who saw them walk through the District towards their houses.

Poe saw the car waiting, and remembered.

“Fuck.”

He stopped walking, and Rey tugged on his hands, not realizing it yet. “What is it?” She twirled closer to him, trying to get him to dance again, but Poe shook his head, his throat tight.

“Turn around,” he whispered. He put his hand against her cheek tenderly and stroked her freckled skin with his thumb. “Turn around and don’t look back.”

“What are you talking about?” Rey looked over her shoulder, her eyes finding the car suddenly. “Is that-”

“I promised.” Poe winced and closed his eyes. “I said I would go, as soon as you were settled, and-”

“What do you mean  _ go _ ?”

“I have an appointment.” Poe admitted shamefully. “In the Capitol. I - I have to go, now. I don’t want you to watch this.”

“Watch-” Rey’s eyes unfocused again, and Poe could scream, the rage flared up inside of him so quickly.

“No.” He guided her to look at him again, and rested his forehead on hers. “No, don’t go, too. One of us has to stay here.”

“Stay.” Whether she was asking him, or promising, Poe couldn’t tell.

“I love you.” He squeezed her shoulders before kissing her forehead delicately. Poe pulled his necklace from around his neck and handed it to her. “Keep this safe for me?”

“Safe.” Rey nodded, her eyes clearing slightly as she slipped the necklace over her head. “I love you.”

“I’ll come back.” Poe eyed the Peacekeepers flanking the large black car that was stalled outside his house. “I will come back to you.”

“Poe-”

“Don’t watch.” He slipped away from her and walked towards the car, his chin held high, spine straight.

He refused to look back to see if she’d done as he asked.

***

Tyrannus Dooku was a real piece of shit, Poe decided three days later in the Medical Center. A real, garbage, awful piece of -

***

“I wonder what Rey’s doing?” Poe muttered to himself a week after that. Finn Storm looked up in concern from across the table, his arm tight around Rose Tico’s shoulders as the lights of the party pulsated around them.

“I thought you didn’t like talking about her here,” Finn whispered urgently, barely audible over the blasting music.

“He’s high.” Rose buried her face in Finn’s chest, her silver dress shining softly. “Leave him be.”

***

“I have a game!” Weela said cheerfully, clapping her chubby hands together. Her skin was dyed orange for the season. 

“I love games, honey.” Poe smiled up at her, all teeth, his eyes cold. 

“Me too!” She simpered, patting his cheek. “Now. You be Ben, and I’ll be Rey!”

Poe stared at her in shock, unable to correct it before she saw it.

“Oh, look at that.” Weela giggled excitedly. “I found a way to still even your tongue!” She scratched her nails along his scalp brutally, and Poe hissed under his breath. “Everyone’s doing it, darling! Everyone just  _ loves  _ their story - and you know her! You can give me some pointers!”

Weela bounced on the bed and smirked up at him. “So, Ben - aren’t you going to come and rescue me?” He noticed, then, the way her hair was up in the style Rey so often wore before they cut her hair.

For the first time since he was fifteen, Poe vomited in front of a client.

***

Snoke oversaw his punishment, and his Rebuilding.

“That’ll cost you another week, I’m afraid.” He gripped Poe’s jaw, turning his head back and forth to examine their handiwork. “Perhaps you just need to work on expanding your imagination?”

They left him in a room with a livefeed of District Four, videos and images of Rey surrounding him on all sides, as he stopped fighting against the restraints on his hospital bed.

***

Poe was finally released to return to District Four a month after he was summoned to the Capitol. He showered on the train, already planning on seeing Rey the second he returned to the Village; so, he didn’t want any trace of the Capitol on his skin when he saw her. Poe scrubbed until the water ran with glitter and who knew what else, the drain swallowing the evidence whole.

Maybe, just maybe, Rey would be still asleep, and wouldn’t be furious with him for knocking on her door and waking her up; maybe, just maybe, she’d invite him in, and let him lie down next to her, as if he weren’t stained by the Capitol, weren’t forever tainted by his visits there. Maybe, just maybe, she’d let him hold her, or she’d even hold him, in her bed, the sheets still warm from her slumber.

He’d be pulling in before six a.m., after all - he’d been invited to one last party, an afternoon tea where he’d been forced to serve men and women of the Capitol wearing a bow tie and no shirt, and he’d left ten hours behind schedule. His father would be out on the boat by that point, which meant there would be no one there to greet Poe as he got off the train. 

Poe had no bags, so he stood empty-handed in front of the doors as they turned the bend towards the District’s train station; the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour or so, the lightening of the sky to the west the only hint that day was coming. It felt odd to becoming back at this time, and Poe braced himself for the lonely walk through a quiet District.

When the doors slid open, he could hear a crowd gathered in the square up ahead. Shouts broke out here and there, and the lights were on as a cold, male voice announced over the speakers: “ _ Citizens should return to their homes immediately. _ ”

“Poe!” Someone shouted his name, an unfamiliar voice, and he stumbled off the train, trying to make sense of it. 

Walsh Calhan was sprinting towards him, eyes wide with fear. 

“What the-”

“Come on, they - they -” Walsh grabbed his hand, having reached him at last, and tugged him desperately towards the town square. “Please. Help.”

“ _ Citizens. Return to your homes immediately. If the crowd does not disperse, we will use force.” _

“Come  _ on _ !” Walsh let go of him and sprinted towards the source of the crowd. Poe kept up, his Capitol shoes slapping against the pavement.

“What’s happening?”

“New head of the Peacekeepers,” Walsh shouted as he started to push through the crowd. Poe was barely able to keep at his heels. “Started when you were gone. Obsessed with curfew.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Walsh didn’t answer, but they’d pushed through to the center of the crowd, where there was a ring of Peacekeepers holding the crowd back, away from a man wearing a glaringly white suit, a red sash tied over his left shoulder. He gripped a young woman by the upper arm, an electrified whip tight in his gloved hand.

The voice over the speakers continued. “ _ Curfew is in effect. Violations will be met with the punishment outlined in _ -”

Poe stopped listening. 

He’d recognized the woman in the grip of the Peacekeeper:

Rey was wearing her slip again, her feet bare; her short hair was bedraggled and wet, plastered to her head, her eyes wild as she struggled against the grip of the man holding her. 

***

Poe thought he understood how Leander must have felt that night in the water, when the light went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next:
> 
> "The Victory Tour"
> 
>  
> 
> I hope this story is still interesting people now that we're done with the (first round of the) Games!!! let me know your predictions for all the cruelty in our near future:)


	9. Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe deals with the fallout from the last chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:
> 
> Violence, including a character being whipped; a character's nose being broken; blood; riots; Peacekeeper brutality; implied death
> 
> I know I said this chapter would be the Victory Tour, but I got to 4000 words and they hadn't started the tour yet, and I want to write a little bit about each district, and then the Capitol of course, and I left you on a cliffhanger a week ago, so here's a shorter chapter than usual (still eleven pages!) to end the cliffhanger suspense

If this were someone else’s story - a hero’s maybe, someone strong, someone destined to save the world - Poe would have known exactly what to do.

In that version, he stepped forward, chin held high, and addressed the Peacekeeper calmly, voice dripping with the Capitol’s vowels.

“And what,” said Poe, “Do you think _you’re_ doing?”

“Punishing a citizen who broke the law,” barked the Peacekeeper. “Identify yourself.”

“My name is Poe Dameron.” He stood as tall as he could, chin still held high, his shirt still stained with glitter, his pants alone costing more than half of the gathered crowd’s monthly earnings. “Victor. And you, my good man, are holding another Victor. Release her, or answer to the Capitol.”

“I am sorry, sir,” apologized the Peacekeeper hastily, his sash coming undone, trailing off of him like blood. “It was a mistake.”

He let Rey go, and she stumbled towards Poe, eyes wide and thankful, and he gathered her in his arms, kissing her soundly, not caring if District Four, or the Capitol, or Snoke himself saw; he carried her through the crowd and to the small house on the sea, where they closed and locked the door and comforted each other into the night.

***

It wasn’t that story.

Poe Dameron wasn’t a hero.

He barely felt like a human, most days.

***

In reality, the story went something like:

***

“Rey?” Poe pushed through the last few rows of people, his voice and ability to move coming back after the shock had passed. “ _Fucking_ \- Rey!”

“No,” an older man hissed, catching the back of his glitter-stained shirt; it was made of slippery silk, and Poe broke free easily enough.

“Rey!” He screamed, voice breaking. It was barely discernible over the quiet roar of the crowd, which grew steadily louder. The row of Peacekeepers kept him from rushing to her side. For now. Desperation was curdling in his gut, driving him to do something stupid.

“Do something,” Walsh begged. “Say something - you’re a Victor, right? They can’t do this-”

“They fucking can’t,” Poe agreed. “Hey!” He shoved against the wall of Peacekeepers as the sirens continued to wail overhead, the announcer growing increasingly cold.

“ _Citizens return to your homes, immediately. This is an unlawful gathering._ ”

“Let her go!” A woman in the crowd screamed. Others took up the chant, but in the middle, Rey looked increasingly lost, no doubt due to the cacophony building. Her hands inched towards her ears, but only one made it - the other was ripped away, her arm still gripped tightly by the Peacekeeper, and Rey gave a sharp cry of pain, twisting towards the man holding her, trying to shove at him even as he pushed her towards the post in front of the Justice Building - the one that hadn’t been used in decades.

She fought like a wildcat to free herself, and the crowd shouted in support -

That’s when he saw it: a glaring red mark shining on the top of Rey’s left shoulder blade, as though she’d been burned. He saw the electric baton on the gathered Peacekeepers’ hips, and the pieces fell together in his mind.

Poe charged forward, slamming through the wall of Peacekeepers. A few grabbed at him, but he was too furious to be held back.

“Rey!” He shouted. She heard him this time, and she turned her wide eyes on him, her free hand leaving her ear to reach out to him.

“Poe.” He couldn’t hear her, not over the crowd, not over the roaring in his ears. The Peacekeeper turned to look at him too, torchlight and the distant sunrise reflected in his visor.

“Let her go!” Two pairs of hands seized him, and Poe thrashed against them wildly, not a single care for dignity at this point; he clawed at them, screaming for her. “Let her go!”

The crowd continued their own chant of _let her go!_

The Peacekeeper raised his whip, and his voice rang out.

“This citizen has broken the laws of curfew and will be thusly punished according to Ordinance-”

“Let her go!” the crowd screamed. Poe dug his fingernails into one of the Peacekeepers’ hands and managed to stomp on the other’s foot. They both released him, most likely due to surprise than anything else, and he sprinted towards the other, screaming Rey’s name.

The lead Peacekeeper didn’t so much as flinch as Poe approached him; he sprinted up the dais where the whipping post waited, adrenaline coursing through him in a way it hadn’t since Rey had gone under the surface of the water - and _no,_ he wouldn’t lose her here, not like this, not after -

The Peacekeeper raised his whip and brought the butt of it down, hard, against Poe’s face.

His nose broke with a sickening crack, and the taste of copper and ringing pain was all he knew for a second.

The crowd screaming was the next thing he registered; Poe staggered to his feet in time to see Rey pushed against the post, her body trembling visibly, her spine showing through the thin material of her slip.

The whip raised, and fell in a sickening mimicry of the waves that crashed against the shore, not too far from here. It fell one more time before Poe regained his senses enough to shakily stand.

“No!” Poe spat blood from his mouth and raced forward again. “You piece of-”

The Peacekeeper turned, the whip poised to strike him now, and he’d take it, fuck it, he’d taken much worse, and he couldn’t even look to see how badly Rey was hurt - she hadn’t even cried out - but then:

“What do you think you’re doing?” Maz Kanata tottered forward, dressed for sleeping, an eye mask perched on top of her head. “You idiot!”

The man froze, clearly confused by the sight of a little old woman scolding him.

“Look at what you’ve done.” She reached Poe and gripped his jaw harshly, pulling him down to examine him. Her eyes revealed her fear; the rest of her remained as cantankerous and solid as ever. Maz turned to wag a finger at the Peacekeeper. “Are you going to pay for the Rebuilding? Hmm?”

“Ma’am, please-”

“Don’t Ma’am me. You just whipped our Victor, and destroyed the face of the most recognizable Victor in Panem’s history!” She tutted disapprovingly and scurried forward. “Stylists are coming _next week_ for the Victory Tour _._ There’s no way they’ll be put together by then. Shall I call Snoke for you, so you can explain? Hmm?” She peered up at the much larger man, incendiary in her fury. Poe watched in shock, still sick to his stomach from the blood running down his throat, at the thought of Rey, still shaking against the post, and eventually the Peacekeeper holstered his whip.

“They need to return to their houses,” he allowed. “Immediately.”

“Yes, of course.” Maz rolled her eyes and beckoned Poe all the way forward. “Take her home, my boy.”

He nodded mutely, skirting around the Peacekeeper, fury and anxiety still ripping at him. He waited to feel the whip at his back as he neared Rey, but it never came.

Instead, he had to deal with the agony of seeing the angry, red lines that crossed her back, the skin ripped open here and there.

“Sunshine.” He whispered the word, but she turned all the same, recognizing the name only he called her. “Hey.”

“Poe.” She lifted a trembling hand to his face, her eyes wide with fear, but not for her own sake. He caught her hand and shook his head, risking a kiss to her fingers.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, the throbbing in his face that suggested he looked a little more gruesome than he’d first thought. “Let’s get you home.”

When he turned, Maz was stalking off through the crowds, creating a path for them. The people had grown silent after Maz’s outburst, and now their eyes followed Poe, who half-carried, half-supported Rey at his side, her legs clearly growing weak the longer she stood.

As they entered the crowd, heading in the direction of Victor’s Village, men and women on either side of them raised their hands, thumbs hooked, curving upwards in the shape of a bird. Maz turned and gestured at them quickly, but then:

“ _Citizens, return to your houses immediately. This is an unlawful gathering on Capitol property.”_

“The Capitol is unlawfully in our houses!” Someone screamed furiously.

The first stone soared through the air, slamming into the helmet of a Peacekeeper.

It was like a signal - that or the starbird that surrounded Rey on all sides while Poe desperately tried to get her through the crowd that had started to surge and morph into something more deadly.

“ _Citizens_ -”

More stones began to soar through the air, striking several Peacekeepers. Poe wrapped a hand around the side of Rey’s face, blocking her eyes, and protecting her head as they neared the edge of the crowd; his heart was in his throat, seemingly permanent now, and Maz raced forward, trying to guide them all the way through.

Right when they reached the edge, bursting through to a clearer part of the street, Peacekeepers began to fire.

***

“My fault,” Rey whispered. Poe had to haul her into his arms after the guns began to fire, after Rey turned with wide eyes and screamed as the bodies began to fall. He was carrying her now through the deserted streets, the noise of the riot still going on beneath them.

“No,” he whispered. “Not your fault.” He winced as his arm brushed against one of the open wounds on her back, making her flinch. “None of this is your fault, sweetheart.”

Maz eyed them and didn’t say a thing.

***

After he’d carried her upstairs and laid her down on the bed, on her stomach, Poe wiped a hand over her forehead and urged her to rest. Rey nodded, her eyes already distant, and Poe turned away to go grab some medical supplies from his bathroom.

In the hallway, he found Maz and his father, who looked half-awake.

“Mijo,” Kes breathed. “What happened to your-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Poe said curtly, cutting his father off. Kes looked taken aback, and Poe tried to smile at him, dried blood cracking around his mouth. “Don’t worry about me, papa. Rey’s the one who needs us right now.”

“You’re both allowed to need help,” Maz offered, but Poe just shrugged and pushed the bathroom door open.

His face was swollen, he noted in the mirror, but he hadn’t spent much time staring at his reflection in years. Not when his appearance had become a weapon used against him.

He was still wearing the shirt from the Capitol, his blood and Rey’s blood now staining it. He ripped it off without second thought, wincing in pain when the fabric passed over his tender nose. Straightening with a hiss from where he’d been digging through the cabinets, he glared in the mirror and lined his fingers up on either side of his nose.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” he muttered, steeling himself. With a sharp push, he slid the cartilage back into roughly the appropriate shape, gagging at the flash of pain.

He slammed his fist into the counter and shook his head. Next, he wet several washcloths made of soft material and used one to wipe his mouth and chin and neck clean. There was significant bruising on either side of his nose, near his eyes, and there was a cut on his cheek where the butt of the whip had slipped and caught him on the way down.

Throwing the wet, bloodied cloth to the side, he gathered up the rest, the first aid kid, some ice packs and anesthetic, and returned to the bedroom where Rey was waiting, Maz and his father close behind him.

“Hey,” he whispered, kneeling down. “This is going to hurt, Sunshine. But I gotta - I need to take care of you.”

“Okay.” Rey mumbled, turning her face into the comforter beneath her. “I trust you.”

“I love you,” he answered, tears already in his eyes at the thought of causing her more pain. “I’m going to clean your back, okay?” She nodded, and he grabbed scissors from the kit, cutting away her slip, wincing when he had to pull the fabric away from the wounds. He pulled up the blanket from the foot of the bed to cover her legs and the swell of her bottom, giving her some illusion of privacy while he worked to reduce what had been done to her.

Rey Kenobi never moved though, never so much as whimpered, even when he poured the clear antiseptic along the painful red lines crossing her thin back, even when he whimpered at the swollen breaks in her skin. His hands shook here and there, but he forced himself to finish, and he looked over his shoulder to find only his father standing there, worry creasing his brow.

“Don’t go out today,” Poe whispered. “Did Maz tell you?”

“She did,” Kes said warily. “But it doesn’t matter. The whole District is on mandatory curfew until further notice. No one’s allowed to leave their houses.”

“Obi,” Rey murmured, her brow finally creasing. “He’ll have no idea where I am-”

“Maz went to him before the curfew went into effect,” Kes assured her, running a tired hand through his hair. “And she brought food and supplies from our stock. He’ll be okay.”

Rey nodded, her eyes fluttering shut.

“I’ll give you two some privacy.” Kes left without another word, and Poe stroked Rey’s bare arm with his fingertips.

“What happened?” He asked her in hushed tones, and Rey frowned, eyes still closed.

“Missed you.” _Fuck._ Guilt stabbed at him. “Woke up, couldn’t find you-”

“My train got delayed,” Poe explained desperately, hoping she’d eventually accept his apology. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, they wouldn’t let me message ahead, I got held up in the Capitol.”

“Figured.” Rey sighed and opened her eyes to stare at him. Poe stroked the hair out of her eyes and rested his chin on the bed to look back at her. “Made me feel…” she wrinkled her nose, and he understood. “So I went to swim. I swim all the time. Never got in trouble before.” She set her jaw stubbornly, and Poe would smile, if he were able to at this point.

“I think they’re changing the rules.”

“Well, they shouldn’t,” Rey muttered darkly. “Not fair.”

“None of this is fair.” Poe’s fingers stilled in her hair, and he studied the chain around her neck; the ring was out of sight, tucked under her body for the time being, where it was safe.

He went to trace the metal of the necklace, and Rey sighed through her nose.

“We should change it.”

“Shh.” Poe eyed the corner of the room warily, stilling again. “Hey, it’s fine.” He lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered, “Not safe here.”

“But you’re here,” Rey protested. “You’re safe.”

“Yeah. I’m safe. And I’m home.” Poe smiled at her for real this time, his heart aching. “Wherever you are, that’s my home.”

“Home.” Rey reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Bed?”

Poe nodded and stood, still shirtless, and slipped out of his pants. Rey smiled at him, not lecherously, just peacefully, as he slid next to her on the bed. She turned to face him and hissed in pain, finally; one of the whip marks curved around to her left hip, and it was also the side she’d been burned on.

“What did they do here?” Poe asked, his fingers tracing above the burn.

“Found me in the water.” Rey followed him as he moved to lie on the other side of her; she carefully rearranged to face him, lying on her right side this time. She wiggled in closer as he got comfortable, her nose brushing against his collarbone, and Poe was very, very careful about where he put his hand. “Dragged me in. Like a fish.”

“Mermaid,” Poe corrected, brushing his lips over her forehead. Rey managed to giggle, which he took as a major victory, considering.

“Wouldn’t go with them.” He could feel her start to tremble. “Reminded me of-” She cut herself off.

“Of what, sweetheart?”

“Of when they took me away from you,” she whispered, shaking fully now. “Before the Games.”

He remembered it too, the full body terror when they’d ripped her away from him, out of the comfort of the bed they’d shared, and he shivered, holding her closer.

The slip still covered the front of her body, but given that he was down to his boxers, it was the closest they’d ever technically been to being naked together. Given the context, though, Poe didn’t feel anything but vulnerable as Rey’s hand inched up his side, trying to hold him tightly as well.

“They’ll have to kill me before they try that again,” Poe swore. Rey gave him a look, indecipherable, but he shook his head. “I mean it. The Capitol can do whatever they want to me. You’re my home. And they need to learn that they can’t hurt you and then turn around and ask me for anything.”

“I wish,” Rey took a trembling breath before pushing forward, “You wouldn't let them hurt you for me.”

“What do you mean?” Poe frowned, and Rey’s fingers came to trace his bottom lip. He nibbled at her fingers softly, and she smiled before hiding her face in the arm he’d wound under her pillow.

“I should go with you to the Capitol,” Rey whispered, and Poe’s blood froze in his veins. “It’s not fair that you … carry all of it. It’s too much. You’re not Atlas.”

***

Atlas, the once mighty Titan doomed to hold the world on his shoulders.

Atlas, whose burden would kill any hero who tried to help, or at the very least, trap them forever.

***

“I can handle it,” Poe promised, shaking his head. “But if they got you, like that, Rey I - I couldn’t handle _that_.”

“Let me make that choice,” Rey said, still addressing the comforter. “I’m not...broken.”

“No.” Poe ran his hand along her side, before trailing his fingers to her chin, trying to get her to look at him; he barely had to try before she did. “But I am.”

“You aren’t-”

“I am.” Poe swallowed and tried to smile, but with his broken nose, bruised face, and shattered heart, he knew it to be a mess of an expression. “I’m broken, Rey. They broke me a long, long time ago, and they break me every time I go back, and the only thing that lets me put myself back together again is you. The thought of you, safe. Keeping you safe. If what I do has any part in protecting you, I’ll do it. It’s the only way back, for me.”

“Poe.” Rey’s eyes filled with tears for the first time that night, but he kissed her instead, not letting her finish whatever lethal thought she was about to voice.

“I love you,” he murmured into the minimal space between them. “I do not regret a single thing I’ve done for you. I never will. Let me handle the Capitol. You stay here in Four. Keep my heart safe.” His fingers traced the ring she wore around her neck.

“Okay.” Rey kissed him back, her eyes still somewhat distant. She looked thoroughly exhausted, and Poe hummed in sympathy, his own bones aching with exhaustion.

“Sleep now?” Poe asked, and Rey’s eyes slipped shut as she nodded. “Do you need anything to help you sleep?” He had some natural remedies in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet, as well as some Capitol-grade pills that he’d never offer her.

“Just you.” Rey’s fingers curled into his side, and Poe’s heart throbbed painfully. “Stay.”

“We’ll both stay,” he said softly, leaning in one last time to kiss her forehead as tenderly as he could. “I love you.”

Rey’s last expression before sleeping was a smile. “Love you,” she breathed, and Poe smiled back, even though she couldn’t see.

***

They spent six days in bed, wrapped around each other, in various stages of undress. Rey’s back healed up quickly, and the bruises darkened around Poe’s eyes. Rey took to tracing the bump in his nose, and Poe smiled at her curious, gentle probing, even though it still slightly twinged when she touched it.

Kes would come and sit with them at times, but mostly he retreated to the room behind the kitchen, where they typically dried fish. Poe wasn’t sure what Kes was anticipating - maybe some past experience with riots taught him that there might be a shortage of Capitol provisions - but his dad spent most of his time preparing rations as though expecting a hard winter.

On the sixth day, late in the afternoon, Poe was stirred from a half-doze on the couch; Rey was still curled into his side, fast asleep while the Capitol music blared on the television - they’d tried watching one of the insipid reality television shows, one Poe hadn’t been forced onto, but had fallen into mocking it, Rey turning the monitor on mute to make up her own dialogue until Poe’s sides had hurt from laughter at her bizarre, cutting commentary.

He blinked, the Capitol insignia blinking on the monitor, and he tried to figure out what had woken him up. There was a light on in the kitchen, where his father was hard at work, but Kes was working quietly, so what had -

A knock, at the door.

Poe gently rearranged Rey so she could continue to rest against the side of the couch; she was wearing nothing but one of his softest, oldest shirts. He was wearing a sweater and frayed pants, clothes he typically wore out on the boat when it was cold.

He crossed the floor barefoot, dread building in his throat. The phone hadn’t rang, not to his knowledge, since he’d returned from the Capitol. Other than the first night, Rey hadn’t made any treasonous comments, and neither had he, and they certainly hadn’t voiced them in a way or venue that would have really caught Snoke’s attention.

Which meant that this would most likely be about the event Maz had spoken of -

Sure enough, when he threw the door open, twilight already settling over District Four, a small coterie of stylists beamed up at him, Kare Kun in the back, a regretful smile on her face.

A man wearing multiple cameras around his body was pointing several of them at Poe, but he made a noise of surprise when he saw him.

“Cut!” One of the Capitol women, with bright orange hair and green-tinted skin hissed. “Cut!”

“Can I help you?” Poe asked, gripping the doorframe tightly. Kare eyed the way his knuckles whitened warily.

“What happened to your face?” The head stylist, Cassia something, wailed. Poe scowled at her. “We’ll have to fix that, won’t we?”

One stylist walked towards him, hands already outstretched.

Poe laughed, almost hysterically, and stepped back inside his house, slamming the door loud enough that Rey jerked upright on the couch, her eyes wild, and Kes shouted something from the kitchen.

There was another knock at the door, but Poe just locked it and walked away.

“Poe?” Rey asked, eyes wide. He held his hand out to her voicelessly, and she took it; he pulled her towards the stairs, taking them slowly as the knocking turned into a hammering.

“Mijo, what’s going on?” Kes shouted up at him, having emerged from the kitchen. Poe didn’t respond, just pulled Rey into his room; he closed and locked the door, turning the lights off, and got under the covers. Rey stood at the side of the bed for a moment before joining him, and she was the one to pull the blanket over their heads.

“How long can we stay like this?” Rey asked, a moment of logical clarity that somehow still didn’t anchor him.

“Forever.” He smiled at the look she gave him. “Just for now,” he amended, and Rey kissed him softly.

Downstairs, Kes Dameron opened the door, and Poe waited for when they’d find them and take Rey away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Victory Tour (at the end of which, there might even be some...consensual smut, if people are interested).


	10. Victory Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Rey embark on the latter's Victory Tour of Panem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings**  
>  Same as ever regarding Poe's similar storyline to Finnick
> 
> Manipulation by Snoke
> 
> Rey is sedated against her will, and also gets high using unnamed drugs to get through a difficult speech
> 
> Threats against Rey's safety; also, at one point, it seems as though she's being led off to have sex, aka following in Poe's footsteps (she's not, and she will not be used in that way by the capitol, at least, successfully)
> 
> Actual consensual sex - fairly explicit at times, but more descriptive of Poe's emotional state than actual acts

Poe studied Karé from across the sitting room of his house - now converted into a fitting room with screens and swaths of fabric and mirrors -  while the slim, athletic woman worked. She’d graciously allowed him to be present at all of Rey’s fittings. He still couldn’t tell if that was a kindness on her part, or practicality.

Probably practicality, as Rey had screamed bloody murder a week ago, after they tried to separate them. She’d screamed and torn at her hair, growing more and more upset until Poe wrapped his arms around her. He’d pressed his lips into her bedraggled hair, careful of the sore marks from the whip that lingered on her back, and she’d curled her fingers around his forearm, glaring up at the stylists in a challenge that none of them seemed to be willing to take.

Now, they were busy with their outfits for the Victory Tour promotion, something Rey was not pleased about, and Poe wasn’t pleased either. Karé, at least, was being as kind and patient as possible, allowing Rey to pick fabrics and cuts that suited her, rather than forcing bizarre, daring, and revealing pieces on the fragile Victor.

Rey’s fragility was mildly up for debate, though, given that she’d survived a whipping, and had been spotted swimming in the cove daily for the last few months, and was able to respond easily to any stylist’s questions. Poe had to interject here and there to assert that she was still healing, and had good days and bad days. He wasn’t sure if anyone was buying it, but he had to try. 

Karé had tried not to raise her eyebrows when she learned that Poe and Rey were, essentially, living together, but he also noted that she looked slightly pleased. She’d also chosen to hide that from the team, insisting that Rey was sleeping in a guest room during District Four’s ‘elective curfew.’

“I think that will do.” Karé stood and straightened out the pleats of Rey’s gown, which was a deep blue-green; the skirt seemed to swell and fade like ocean waves, and the bodice was modest, an asymmetrical line that hit an inch below Rey’s prominent collarbone. “Don’t lose anymore weight, little Rey.”

The advice was given with Karé’s eyes on Poe, and he shifted, feeling actually guilty for how thin Rey had become. He’d wasted so much time, after all, when they’d returned. So much time avoiding Rey, so much time not checking with her, all because he assumed that by touching her life, he made it worse.  _ How badly had he hurt her in his attempt to do exactly the opposite? _

As though she could hear his self-hatred, Rey turned and smiled at him, raising her hands out like she would take flight. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful.” He didn’t hesitate, and his eyes didn’t move from her face. Another member of Karé’s crew, Millicent, maybe, made a soft tittering noise of surprising, and he cleared his throat. “You did great work, Karé.”

“Mhm.” She smirked at him so the other stylist, now bustling out of the room and leaving them alone, couldn’t see the expression, and then smiled more genuinely up at Rey. “Spin for us?”

Rey obliged, and the skirt flared to life, iridescence cascading up and down the fabric, capturing perfectly the way the sun looked glinting off the sea. Poe found a lump in his throat that wasn’t there before, especially when Rey looked down with a real smile on her wan face, her eyes lighting up eagerly as she continued to spin.

A giggle escaped her mouth, but her foot slipped up on the stool Karé had parked her up on, and she teetered off balance for a moment, not used to the high heeled shoes she had to wear for the fitting.

“Whoa!” Poe leapt to his feet and braced her, one hand at her waist, the other in her hand. “Careful, Sunshine.”

“Are we going to dance?” Rey teased him, grinning down and squeezing his hand. Poe beamed up at her, forgetting for a moment why they were there, and what this was for -- she looked so happy, smiling like she hadn’t smiled since before the Games, and for a single, glorious second, the world righted itself.

“I’d love to dance with you.” He helped her step down from the stool. “If it’s alright?” 

He addressed Karé with the question, and she nodded, waving a permissive hand. Poe forgot all decorum, all of the hours of etiquette lessons he’d been forced into to perform for the Capitol, and began to spin Rey around the room, singing an old tune his mother had taught him.  

_ Nos dejamos hace tiempo, pero me llego el momento, de perder _

_ Tu tenias mucha razon, le hago caso al corazon _

_ Y me muero por volver _

He picked Rey up and swung her, happily humming between the stanzas, her skirt flaring out behind her, and they laughed when their feet tangled up more than once in their enthusiasm. Rey almost fell over again, so he switched to holding her waist and hand gently, swaying back and forth with his forehead on hers. Karé didn’t interrupt, something for which Poe was infinitely grateful - he and Rey had had enough of being interrupted. 

_ Y volver volver, volver _

_ A tus brazos otra vez, llegare hasta donde estes _

_ Yo se perder, yo se perder, quiero volver _

_ Volver, volver _

They stilled, and Poe rested his chin on Rey’s shoulder; looking up, he realized his grave mistake.

He’d thought that they were entirely alone with Karé in the fitting area; but now he could see one of the cameramen, his body encased in lenses like some shiny bug, present and recording the entirety of the moment he’d shared with Rey.

Fear was his initial response - and then exhaustion. Without lifting his head from Rey’s shoulder, he looked directly into the camera.

“Haven’t you taken enough?” He asked wearily. Rey stiffened in his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go, not so she could turn and see the man recording them. “Is there anything that can just be ours? Or do you vultures have to take everything?”

“Poe.” Karé spoke quietly, a warning. He didn’t care. 

He didn’t care that he’d been recorded singing in a forbidden language - he cared that they’d seen him vulnerable and happy, the way he was when he was untouched by the Capitol. He hated that they’d seen any part of himself that was genuine.

He cared that Rey had been caught in the middle of his stupid, careless moment of rebellion.

***

Over the next weeks, Poe waited for the call from the Capitol, summoning him for his punishment.

Would he be the entertainment at a sadist’s party?

Would he be required to serve the most hellacious of the Capitol?

Would Snoke threaten his father this time? Or Obi? Snoke knew better than to threaten Rey, who would most certainly be missed by Panem if she were to go missing.

The summons never came.

Instead, two weeks after Karé departed, promising to send trunks of clothing by mid-December, the red phone in his home rang, right as there was a knock at his door.

“Go to our room,” Poe whispered to Rey, grabbing her hand tightly as he rose from the couch where they’d been sitting in peace only moments ago. “Close the door and lock it. Don’t open it for anyone besides me or Kes.”

“Poe--”

“Go.” He jerked his head to the staircase, and she brushed past him, eyes luminous and swimming with tears she was too proud, or too strong, to shed.

The phone continued to ring, and he steeled himself before reaching for it.

“Hello?” He spoke in a falsely bright voice - clients had called him without warning before.

“Mr. Dameron.” Snoke. “I’ve heard some disturbing news, my boy.”

“Have you?” Poe didn’t drop his fake voice, but his jaw tightened while he listened for the sounds confirming that Rey had followed his instructions.

A door closed upstairs, and he breathed a little easier. 

“Yes,” Snoke continued “I heard that you rejected our generous offer to have the damage to your face repaired.”

_ The damage - was this about --  _

“My nose, sir?” Poe asked through gritted teeth. As if on cue, the still sore break in his nose throbbed. 

“Your nose,” Snoke confirmed. “We’d hate it if our favorite Victor was less than whole when he returned. You do plan to return, Mr. Dameron.”

It could have been phrased as a question, in a different life. Poe knew better.

“Yes, sir.” His hand tightened into a fist at his side. 

At this point, he didn’t care if Snoke could see it over the cameras in his home. This was the moment where Snoke ordered him to come to the Capitol for a Rebuilding, this was the moment where he was told to open the door, where a stylist and Peacekeepers waited to drag him away 

\--  _ he should have said a more proper goodbye to Rey, to his father -- Kes wasn’t even home, where was he? Why was Kes never home these days?  _

“You have two options, my boy.” That caught him off guard: options? Poe hadn’t been offered options, not really, in years. He had a feeling this wasn’t really going to be about  _ options.  _

“One: open the door, and permit the Medic I have sent to fix your nose.”

_ It was a Medic outside the door?  _ He couldn’t believe it.

“Two: You open the door, and stand aside while the Medic I have sent fixes everything with Ms. Kenobi that we have generously overlooked since her Reaping last year.”

The floor fell out from underneath him.

“Sir?” He asked weakly, bile in his throat. He stared at the wall blankly, trying to regain his composure.

“I have quite the list of Fixtures that you so … passionately rejected, when she arrived at the Capitol.”

_ What a kind way to say Poe had shattered the bones in that stylist’s hand.  _

“We have uneven dimples in her cheek, lines in her forehead and around her eyes, a chipped front tooth, a scar on her cheek,” Snoke rambled on peacefully, as though he weren’t digging a knife into Poe’s side, “And those pesky marks from sun damage. All over her body.”

“They’re freckles,” Poe corrected automatically, unable to stop himself.

“Yes.” Snoke snorted. “There’s the matter of her bust, too, of course--”

_ Fuck you  _ \--

“I’ll do it,” Poe interjected, gripping the table for balance. “Just - send them in, and I’ll submit to the Rebuilding, and I’ll come back. To the Capitol. Whatever you want. Don’t -- don’t hurt her. Please.” His voice sounded weak, small, pathetic, even to himself.

“Hurt her?” Snoke had the gall to sound surprised. “Why, Mr. Dameron, the Capitol loves Ms. Kenobi. She’s as gentle as a dove. Why ever would I hurt her?” 

_ I only hurt her when you fuck up,  _ went unsaid to the question Snoke posed.

“I’ll let them in.” Poe cleared his throat, trying not to cry, or worse, vomit. Snoke would be all too pleased about either.

“Very good. I’ll see the improvement myself when you return to the Capitol in January.”

“January?” Poe blinked in surprise, still reeling, unable that he’d heard Snoke correctly.

“Yes, January, when you escort Ms. Kenobi on the Victory Tour.”

_ That’s almost a month and a half -- why would they be so kind? _

“I expect you’ll be coaching Ms. Kenobi, in the meantime, for her appearances in the districts,” Snoke said, and the pieces fell together in his mind. 

They knew Rey was better when he was with her. Not summoning him to the Capitol wasn’t a kindness. It was a practicality. Poe had protected Rey so far, but at the worst possible cost: he’d allowed them to learn how to break both of them. Take either away, and the other would fall. 

This would be their life - Poe, at the mercy of the Capitol. Rey, trained for the slaughter at Poe’s hands. 

“Yes sir.” Poe whispered. There was another knock at the door. 

“Let them in, Mr. Dameron. I’ll see you in January -- and I’m sure, in your absence, the Capitol will only grow more desperate for your time. I hope you’ll be ready to fulfill your obligations once you arrive.”

He hung up before Poe could respond.

Numb to everything, he dragged his feet to the door and opened it. 

***

In the following weeks, Poe found his mind drifting to the story of Orfeo time and time again.

As he sat on his boat and watched Rey disappear and reappear, in and out of the waves, he thought of Eurídice, a nymph who had the misfortune of falling in love with a musician, a nymph chased by an envious man away from safety, a nymph killed by a viper that lay in wait for her heel. 

Eurídice was brought to Hades; Orfeo followed her, and, begging audience with the queen of the Underworld, played his music and managed to win sympathy enough to enter into a bargain --

Lead his precious wife out of the underworld, and save her soul.

The catch: he had to trust that she was following him. She was forbidden to speak to him or touch him; and, if he looked over his shoulder, she would be lost for eternity.

It went well enough at first; but, fifty feet from the exit, he grew doubtful.

***

_ “Mama, _ ” Poe asked, lifting his head from the pillow to squint at her. “ _ Why didn’t he trust the queen? She had no reason to lie to him.” _

_ “Sometimes, mijo,”  _ Shara answered, smoothing his hair out of his face and easing him back down.  _ “Things seem too good to be true. And we grow suspicious. Orfeo was human, like you, like me.”  _

***

Orfeo turned around, fifty feet from freedom.

Eurídice was dragged back into Hades. 

Poe had never understood why he’d risked everything for that glance.

***

Rey appeared at the edge of the boat one morning while he thought about Orfeo.

Her hair was plastered to her head, slicked back from the salt water that coursed down her freckled skin in rivulets. A nymph from the sea, brought back to him.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked curiously, her thin fingers gripping the side of his boat.

“Impossible choices,” Poe answered, leaning over the railing to smile at her. She flicked water up at him before disappearing under the surface again. Poe’s stomach tightened as he wondered why she ever came back up to begin with when she was so much safer in the water.

***

As a child, Poe had never understood why Orfeo had risked everything for that glance; he’d done the impossible, after all, going into the heart of hell to demand his wife back. He’d gone so far on nothing but hope; how had he lost it with the end so near?

Poe watched Rey swim through the waves in the distance and knew that, no matter how hard he fought the Capitol for her freedom, the small sliver of hope offered to him that one day it would be enough, that one day, they might let them go --

It was enough to kill him. To kill them both. But it wouldn’t stop him from holding onto that hope that one day, they’d be free.

He took a deep breath, and removed the cabled sweater he often wore on his boat.

Without pausing, he dove off the side of the boat and into the waves.

Rey smiled delightedly at him when he caught up with her, and she even allowed him to pull her in and wrap her legs around his waist while he treaded water.

“Welcome back,” she teased, her small hands petting damp curls out of his face. 

“I love you,” he said desperately, and a flicker of pain crossed her expression before it smoothed out. They were both skilled at hiding by this point.

She kissed him instead of answering, and Poe allowed the water to pull them under, never breaking the kiss as the sea welcomed them home.

***

Kes gripped his shoulder, the night before they left for the Victory Tour.

“I love you more than anything,” Kes said quietly, his weathered hand tight on Poe’s joint. He didn’t shrug him off, though.

“I love you too, papa.” Poe leaned into his father, accepting the bone-crushing hug he was offered. “I’ll miss you. I always do.”

His arms tightened around him, and Poe fought back inexplicable tears. 

_ Please don’t ask me to come home  _  -- Kes hadn’t asked him for that in two years. His father seemed to realize that it was an impossible request. Poe never came home; not really. The closest he came to home was on the deck of his boat, a quarter mile from the shore, his limbs wrapped around a girl who wasn’t really all there half the time anyway.

“I only want for you to be happy,” Kes said. Tears slipped down Poe’s cheeks without warning; judging by the warmth he felt on the top of his back, Kes also cried. 

That request was somehow worse - Poe almost wished Kes had asked for him to come home instead.

***

Rey was quiet on the train the next day, her eyes unblinking as she watched the countryside slip by, fading from sea grass to something drier, the sky less blue somehow as they headed east.

“Obi Wan said something strange,” she whispered when Poe settled on the seat next to her. He looked at her curiously, but she said nothing else, just held her hand out to him. He took it without question, and returned his gaze to the window. 

They sat there well until after the sun had gone down, only moving when Rey slipped out of her chair and curled up on Poe’s lap. 

Her trust was double-sided: pride, that she found safety in him; guilt, that she couldn’t see the danger in him. 

***

“I didn’t get to speak to Clover and Olive,” Rey whispered into the microphone. “Not much. Not past Training. But - they were sweet. And funny. Olive had a way of standing on his toes, like a bird,” Rey lifted onto her own toes as if unaware she were doing it, and real tears slipped down her face, not disturbing the flawless makeup they’d forced on her that morning. “And. They were both so young.” She pulled away from the mic, hand covering her mouth and shook her head.

“I’m sorry.” Too quiet to be accused of being designed to be heard; too close to the mic not to be heard.

A rumble started in the crowd, and Poe walked over and gently pushed Rey out of the way, and smiled into the microphone almost manically. “Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever,” he chirped, blowing a kiss into the crowd. He pushed Rey again, less gently, as the rumble didn’t quiet down; Maz caught her and led her into the doors of the Justice Building.

Poe stared up at the screen, his expression slipping into something more genuine as he tried to see what the Peacekeepers lined up behind him were doing.

A moment later, he was roughly pulled back and up the steps; Rey fell into his arms the second he stumbled into the Justice Building, shaking violently. 

“I can’t do that again,” she sobbed. “ _ Their families were right there.  _ They - they lost their children. Their babies. Don’t make me do it again, please--”

“Shh,” he soothed her as well as he can while the Peacekeepers bolted the door behind them. Maz watched them warily, her arms crossed in front of her diminutive frame. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m sorry--”

Rey would not be soothed. “ _ Please don’t make me do it again _ \--”

They had to be in District Eleven in fifteen hours.

***

Rey didn’t speak to him on the train, but, in the middle of the night, she slipped through his door and settled on the edge of his bed, a wraith in the low light, her hair tousled, eyes sleepless.

“Rey--” he reached a hand out for her, but she didn’t touch him. 

She didn’t speak.

***

Eurídice, being led through the Underworld.

Lost forever.

***

“Nimaa and Jaku were very -- I cared about them.” Rey was shaking visibly, her eyes locked on a fixed point on the stage in front of her. Finn stood to the side, agony etched in his handsome face, clearly yearning to reach out to support her.

Poe understood the feeling.

“I cared about them, and I couldn’t save them.” Rey’s shoulders slumped, and she wrapped her arms around her middle, disregarding the posture lessons Poe had reluctantly given her in the last month. “They were - they were so small. And they trusted me.” Her voice caught into a sob. “They shouldn’t have trusted me. I’m -- I failed them. I failed you. I’m s-sorry.”

***

Victors did not apologize.

It wasn’t good for Panem, to have an apologetic Victor.

***

Rey broke into pieces in front of him, and Poe tried not to break as well.

He couldn’t maintain his Capitol approved expression; not when she suffered so clearly.

He made his first true mistake of the Tour: Poe stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Rey’s waist. She stiffened, clearly expecting him to lead her away from the mic, but he made no effort to remove her, to silence her. Instead, he leaned into her in support, his eyes never leaving her face.

She locked eyes with him for a moment before something in her face stilled, and, seemingly without awareness, she nodded hesitantly.

“I’d like to offer half of my monthly winnings to Nimaa and Jaku’s family,” Rey said firmly, all fragility gone from her face as she nearly glared up at the cameras. “I live by myself, with my grandfather, and we support ourselves well enough. I wasn’t able to save your children, but I’d like to help.”

Silence met her declaration; Poe’s mind whirred.  _ Was she even allowed to promise that _ ?

Pride, at his love’s bravery; fear, at what it might cost.

Then: the starbird rose in the crowd, hands interlocking, the sight spreading from corner to corner with no clear origin.

***

The starbird from the ashes.

Hope: the most dangerous thing a Victor could offer.

Victors were meant to instill fear, not show compassion.

***

Peacekeepers marched forward into the crowd, pulling people out at random and dragging them to the front.

“No!” Rey screamed, the noise rebounding through the town square. Poe nearly lifted her as he pulled her backward, trying to get her to turn around. She was strong, but she was slight, and he was stronger; he managed to spin her and march her up the steps, waving off the hands of the Peacekeepers who grabbed for them.

He managed not to let her see; but there was nothing he could do about the gunshots that reverberated through the square. Rey collapsed like strings had been cut, and Poe sank to his knees next to her -- Peacekeepers did grab them both then, and Rey went without protest, her face grey; Poe fought, but only for a moment, until he remembered who he was. 

In the distance, fields of grain waved under an unforgiving winter sun.

***

Poe wondered if Persephone welcomed the souls herself that day, as it was her season to rule.

He wondered if she kept count of all the souls that were there because of his mistakes.

He wondered if she’d forgive him for it, when he finally met her.

***

“I didn’t mean to,” Rey kept whispering, over and over again, as Poe carried her onto the train, Maz behind them, making strange noises that mixed comfort and anger here and there. 

She was still whispering it when Poe walked into the room he’d been sleeping in.

He threw away the white rose, the one lying in wait for them on the pillow, before she could see it, but the message was clear.

_ No more mistakes.  _

***

Heavily sedated, Rey read prepared words of encouragement to Prudence and Addam’s family, District Ten looking on in neither approval nor disdain. 

She looked ill, swaying where she stood, but her expression was at least neutral, her lovely, low voice not stumbling over the syllables.

Poe had helped her practice this morning.

What was one more reason to hate himself?

***

_ “Some people say Orfeo turned around on purpose,”  _ Shara said, humming something under her breath while she wove a net for the boat.

_ “Why would he do that?”  _ Poe sounded indignant even to himself, his legs almost as long as his father’s now.

_ “They thought that maybe he’d needed tragedy to sing about, that he needed something truly sad for inspiration in his music.” _

_ “... That’s silly.” _

_ “I agree.”  _ Shara kissed the top of his head with gusto, and Poe squirmed and blushed but didn’t push her away.  _ “There’s enough tragedy in this world, mijo. Why invent more?” _

***

The same prepared words were read in Nine, for Farro and Emmery’s family.

Rey hadn’t slept in three days, and that night, Poe swallowed his protests when she swallowed the sleeping pills he’d so desperately tried to keep away from her.

***

Eight was under heavy curfew when they arrived - Rubert and Millie’s families were in attendance, but the factories in the distance were not in operation, no smoke rising from their massive, grey towers. 

***

Seven’s ceremony and feast took place in a beautiful forest, with birds chittering overhead; most of the people who lived in the center of the sprawling district wore simple clothes and boots, finery seeming to be not even a second thought to them.

“It’s so green,” Rey breathed into the microphone, the prepared speech loose in her hand. “I didn’t think there was this much in green in all of Panem.” She stared up at the canopy overhead, so enthralled, so exhausted, that she entirely forgot to speak. 

Poe loosened the speech from her hand and read it in her stead, holding her hand tightly as if he could anchor her that way, risking a little more in front of the Capitol’s cameras.

With a pang in his heart at the feast - some kind of bird, and plenty of berries - Poe thought to himself that one day, he’d like to bring Rey back here to the forest, so she could surround herself in green and forget what had happened, and what had been done to her.

They would probably never return, though, so he didn’t try to pull her away from whatever thoughts she was lost in, her eyes turned up at the trees towering overhead, too far away to answer any of the questions the kind, if overly polite, mayor offered her.

Let Rey sit among the green for a little while longer, he thought to himself. At least in her mind, she was free.

***

More sedation followed her refusal to engage in conversation in Seven; Poe wasn’t there for that, led away by a Peacekeeper’s request to examine something for President Snoke, a flimsy excuse to separate them.

She was high as a kite by the time he returned, and he growled under his breath and tore at his hair, furious that they’d force drugs on her in his absence --

Until Maz tugged his hand and beckoned him to lower his ear to her mouth.

“She asked,” Maz whispered urgently. “She didn’t want to…” Maz trailed off, but Poe understood.

He couldn’t blame Rey, after all -- it was nothing more than what he often did in the Capitol.

Best not to feel at all.

She tried to kiss him that night, loose-limbed, her mouth warm but oddly dry when she pressed a kiss to his lips.

“No.” He shook his head and pulled the blanket up and around her, opting not to slip under the covers with her. “Not like this.”

“I want you,” Rey whispered, leaning into him again. 

“It’s the drugs.” He said firmly, tucking her hair behind her ear and allowing a single, chaste kiss to her forehead, so she wouldn’t think he was rejecting her. “You’ll feel differently in the morning.”

“I always want you,” Rey mumbled stubbornly. “Always.”

His heart thudded in his chest, and he smiled at her, trying to figure out how to tell her that he always wanted her too -- but her wanting _ him _ was different than her  _ wanting.  _

She was asleep before he could piece it together.

***

Watt and Volt’s speech went better than 6, Rey coming out of sedation long enough to make an actual, cogent comment about the two tributes, one that respected their strengths, and the strength of their district, without playing up her own fragility or falling into sentimentality.

Poe smiled at her proudly, and then waved for the cameras.

At the back of his head, though, he could only think that three more districts separated them from the Capitol.

Three more districts, and then he’d lead her through the worst of Hades.

***

It was a mercy, Poe realized, that they didn’t stop at Four while on the Tour. That would be their final destination, their final triumphant visit, their return home -- a brag in the face of the districts who had lost children that year. 

It was a mercy because Poe wasn’t sure how they’d be able to continue on if they had even a taste of home.

***

In Three, Poe slipped the bracelet, woven from thin twine, into Rose’s hand.

“Finn,” he whispered, trying to make it look like he hadn’t spoken. The small Victor looked overwhelmed for a moment before she slipped it over her hand, the bracelet settling perfectly on her wrist. She nodded, and then smiled at Rey, holding her arms out for a hug.

“It’s not your fault,” Rose said fiercely, burying her face in Rey’s chest. “It’s not. Give ‘em hell, Kenobi.”

Rey nodded and hugged Rose back, looking only slightly confused.

The crowd was already unsettled when Rey walked up to the mic; several people shouted at her, demanding to know what she really thought, as her hands trembled and she read aloud from the prepared remarks.

The Peacekeepers dragged Rey back inside before she was even done reading.

***

Poe stood directly at Rey’s shoulder in Two; no one stood to the side for Armitage Hux. He’d had no family, apparently, and as awful as he’d been, Poe felt a stirring of pity in his gut for the skinny, cruel boy.

Gwenmere was represented by a stately, powerful woman, who’d nodded respectfully when Rey praised Phasma’s grace under pressure, her strength, and her keen mind. 

District Two went almost as well as Five; but then again, it wasn’t Two that Rey had been dreading.

***

Banners bearing holographs of Ben Solo and Bazine Netal were erected around the town square at District One.

They were Luxury Goods, after all - it would make sense to have a luxurious welcome for the slender, beautiful Victor, the one who had been born to them and taken from them.

“She’s ours, too, you know,” the mayor commented lightly to Poe at the feast, after Rey had cried and cried and cried into the microphone while trying to talk about Ben, and how she’d been unable to save him. 

The cameras had devoured her grief; Poe could only envision the way it would be replayed in the Capitol that night, Rey’s unfeigned hysteria over the lost boy from One.

“She’s nobody’s. She’s her own,” Poe corrected irately. The mayor studied him with a smirk and leaned in.

“The rumors are true, then?”

“What rumors?” 

Poe’s hands fidgeted under the table, longing for a knife in his palm. Rey danced, shy and nervous, nothing like the dance they’d shared in Four, in the arms of Tarkin, who, at least, didn’t look all that interested in her.

“That it wasn’t just Ben Solo’s heart that was captured in the Capitol.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Poe threw his napkin onto the table and stood, shaking slightly from suppressed anger. “If you excuse me.” He bowed slightly to the mayor and then walked away from the table, almost walking to Rey, but correcting his course last second and going to stand next to Maz instead.

She patted his arm consolingly, and he pretended that it helped, even in the slightest.

***

The Capitol lived up to every one of the terrible expectations Poe had.

Hands reached out without permission to touch him as he walked up the steps to Snoke’s manor. Rey was at his side, also prey to the Capitolites who cooed over her new hair -- some even shrieked at her, trying to show off their own, similar hairstyles -- petting her skirt, which fanned out behind her.

Her gown was soft and grey, the train tapering down to a single point, fabric cascading from a gathered point between her shoulder blades. She looked like a mourning dove; it reminded Poe of Snoke’s comment regarding her gentleness.

Rey was beautiful, and had clearly called upon her reserves of steel for the evening, for she didn’t flinch from the hands, merely reached back to them, taking some people’s hands, causing screams to erupt. She smiled beatifically even when asked about Ben, and she laughed and nodded and dithered her way up the stairs, past the blinding flashbulbs of the cameras, elegant and beautiful and gentle to the very last step.

“You don’t need to,” Poe whispered to her uselessly while they waited for the doors to open. He tugged anxiously at the thin, glittering shirt he’d been shoved into, the seams of his too-tight suit jacket feeling like rope binding his arms. “There’s no one here you need to impress.”

“I could say the same to you,” Rey whispered back, something dangerous in her expression.

_ It’s not fair that you carry all of it,  _ she’d said to him, when she’d asked to accompany him to the Capitol. Too late, he realized her own, secret agenda of the night.

“Rey--”

Before he could beg her not to draw too much attention to herself, not to expose her strength and usefulness to the Capitol, the doors opened, and Snoke himself greeted them.

“Welcome,” he purred, holding out a withered hand to Rey. She took it without hesitation, a pretty, undimpled smile on her face. “Come in, my dear, come in.”

***

It was Poe who followed Rey through the mansion, a role reversal he hadn’t expected.

_ How could he lead her out of Hell if she walked in front of him?  _

_ Turn around,  _ he willed at her, eyes on the back of her perfectly styled hair,  _ turn around, Sunshine, look at me - look at me --  _

Unlike Orfeo, Rey was in total control of herself. 

She didn’t turn around.

***

They were separated at the feast, and Poe tried not to let his sheer panic and despair show as he was led, like a lamb to slaughter, to a client who’d  _ missed him so dearly.  _

He tried not to count the seconds while he was with her, away from Rey, but as seconds dragged into minutes dragged into hours, he remained in the room, door locked, unable to escape or see how Rey was doing. 

“You’re so distant,” his client cooed at him, and Poe forced a tight smile onto his lips.

“Just so grateful to be back with you, honey,” he cooed back, and that seemed to placate her while he busied himself, trying not to count the seconds, minutes, hours that dragged by.

***

An hour and a half after he’d been summoned, Poe walked down the hallway, towards the stairs that would take him back to the party.

His heart stuttered in his chest, and then stopped:

Rey was walking up the stairs, chin held high, her hands clenched into fists.

“No.” He stopped walking, and almost fell to his knees on the plush, extravagant carpet of Snoke’s mansion. “ _ No. _ ”

Rey shook her head at him, a small, sad smile offered up as though that could make this better.

“Rey--”

His heart couldn’t take it, he was sure. He would die here, either at the gun of a Peacekeeper, lunging for whomever had paid for Rey’s ‘time’ or his own heart collapsing from the strain of it, of the years of work he’d put into to keeping Rey away from this exact fate, all for nothing. 

Nothing could prepare him for this, no pain or separation or loss --

Galen Erso walked up the steps behind Rey, a mysteriously neutral expression on his face. He saw Poe staring at Rey as though at a ghost, and he nodded serenely at him.

“Dameron.” 

He tried to communicate something with his eyes, and Poe strangely found himself relaxing. It was Erso, after all, who’d summoned him last year for a meeting that had ended with Poe laden with information and not with the burden of another pair of hands he didn’t want. 

“I’ll take good care of her,” Erso promised silkily, and Poe had to compliment him on his word choice -- to anyone listening, it was lecherous, disturbing. To Poe though, it sounded like more of a promise. It was Erso, after all.

Erso, secretly aiding a resistance against the Capitol. Erso, who’d risked everything for plans from District Three, plans for future arenas, for power systems and grids throughout the nation.

Poe only wished he could offer the same reassurance he felt to Rey in this moment, as she had no idea that Erso was an ally.

“Thanks, honey,” he said cheerfully.

Poe forced himself to walk down the stairs, away from Rey. He refused to turn around; to turn around would have been to doom her, to draw attention to the scene, to betray any of the tumultuous emotions inside of him. He could not turn around. 

Unlike Orfeo, he didn’t fail. This time.

***

“Galen Erso paid handsomely for your Victor’s time.” Snoke smirked at Poe as they sat at the head of the banquet hall. Poe twitched but didn’t rise to the bait. “Very handsomely. I’ve been taking offers for the last few weeks, of course, but,” Snoke examined the sheen of the mother-of-pearl spoon he was holding before digging it into the bowl of tiny fish eggs. Poe tried not to be sick, “Erso had the best suggestion to, how shall I say, break her in.”

Poe felt his knuckles pop from how tightly his hands formed into fists.

“He gets an hour with her,” Snoke offered a glass of champagne to Poe, and nodded peacefully. “An hour, and then, of course, we’ll try to see what we can salvage so other guests can spend time with the rare, hidden jewel of District Four.” 

He couldn’t take his eyes off the of the table, afraid of what his eyes would betray - he’d thought Erso would be the end of it. Childish, really.

Poe had entertained multiple guests on his own Victory Tour, after all.  

“Take heart, my boy.” Snoke tapped the bottom of Poe’s glass, and he drank robotically, knowing it was what Snoke wanted. “This means that it won’t be so terrible if you wish to have her for yourself.”

“...Sir?” Poe didn’t lift his eyes, his voice weak enough to show how he was feeling.

“Don’t play dumb, boy. I’ve seen how you are with her. You’re lucky the Capitol is distracted, or they’d see how you  _ look  _ at her. You want her for yourself. And now, in the … privacy of your District, you can have her, and no one will be any wiser.”

“Excuse me.” Poe stood quickly, the urge to vomit rising; he couldn’t be sick here at the table. Who knows what that would cost him, cost her, cost all of them -

Snoke raised a twisted, scarred eyebrow at him, a look of brutal amusement in his eyes.

Before the president could say anything, could extend any further, sickening  _ permission  _ for him to …. to …. a commotion rose at the top of the stairs.

Peacekeepers swarmed up the steps, summoned by something that had clearly been communicated over their earpieces; the Peacekeeper standing behind Snoke, the red sash over his white uniform the only signal to his rank, leaned forward to whisper something in Snoke’s ear.

“Contain it,” Snoke hissed at the man, turning flinty eyes up at Poe. His stomach sank to his feet as Snoke stood as well. “You. With me.”

They walked to the stairs, Poe’s mind reeling, but then, then he understood:

Galen Erso stumbled down the first step, clutching his side. 

“I told you to contain it,” Snoke snapped at the Peacekeeper at his shoulder. The man sprinted forward, gesturing at his men. 

For an odd, brief moment, Snoke was left unprotected, and Poe was left with a vision of himself strangling the old man with his bare hands.

A scream from Erso broke the thought.

“She stabbed me!” He lifted his hand away from his side, blood staining his palms, and a collective gasp went around the ballroom. “The little  _ wildcat  _ \--”

No mistake that Erso used the nickname Ben Solo had been so found of.

“She stabbed me!” He repeated hysterically, collapsing against a nearby Peacekeeper. 

Erso was here, but where was --

Two Peacekeepers dragged Rey between them, into sight of the ballroom. 

“Turn around,” Snoke hissed, sweeping forward, but it was too late. The guests all saw -

She was naked, except for a sheet wrapped hastily around her slender frame, and blood streaked her arms and splattered across the fabric allowing her some small amount of modesty. Poe’s feet were frozen to the spot as he stared up at her -- she was wild-eyed, her freckles standing out from a distance, too shocked to fight against the hands that gripped her, but when Erso turned around to point at her, she screamed in real terror.

“Ben!” She sobbed, clutching the Peacekeepers as though they were there to protect her, not contain her. “Ben, please!”

“Oh, no.” A woman three feet to Poe’s left gasped in horror, and started to fan herself. “Oh, that poor dear--”

Somehow,  _ somehow,  _ this disaster was yielding sympathy for Rey, who’d been dragged off to lose her virginity as part of the evening’s entertainment. Rey, who’d clearly fought tooth and nail to fight her fate, even though saying  _ no  _ in the Capitol was always met with punishment.

“Ben!” Rey screamed again, staring into the crowd, her wild eyes not pausing on Poe. “Help me!”

“Take her away,” Snoke ordered quietly to the head Peacekeeper, and she was dragged out of sight. Poe stumbled after them, pushing as politely as he could with the terror inside of him rearing its head, pushing through to be with her, so that he could throw himself on Snoke’s mercy, or at least, throw himself in front of whatever punishment awaited Rey.

“She’s not in her right mind,” Galen, the victim of Rey’s self-defense, shouted, pale and still bleeding. “Someone help her --”

Multiple guests swept up the stairs, paying no heed to the Peacekeepers that half-heartedly tried to block them. “Let her go,” begged the woman Poe had first heard express her pity for Rey. “Please, President, she needs help!”

“She needs to go home,” Poe muttered, just loud enough to be heard, and someone, a man with aqua hair, nodded vehemently.

“She needs to go home!” The man shouted loudly, standing on tiptoes to glare up at Snoke. 

Poe sprinted up the stairs, as fast as he could through the growing throngs of concerned Capitol citizens. He passed Erso, who was now being attended to be a Medic; he could have sworn the man winked at him, but it was transformed quickly into a grimace of pain, a groan of agony.

***

Galen Erso was the most talented Gamemaker in Panem history. This event was assuredly his most successful to date.

***

“He stabbed himself,” Rey whispered in Poe’s ear when he finally reached her, when she’d weakly shoved the Peacekeepers - confused at her lack of rebellion up until this point - aside and thrown her arms around Poe’s neck. “He - he told me to play along.”

“She’s not well,” Poe reported loudly to the citizens from the Capitol lined up at the end of the hallway. He smoothed hair out of Rey’s face and frowned theatrically, adjusting them carefully, so that Rey’s back was to their audience. “Rey, honey, I’m not Ben.”

Her hands trembled - not an act - as she stroked his hair. Almost the same color as Ben’s, their closest trait. 

“Where’s Ben?” She demanded just as loudly. 

“This is over,” Snoke hissed, face blotchy with rage. He waved a hand at the Peacekeepers, who began to push back against the Capitol citizens.

***

A quarter of an hour later, the party had dispersed, and Poe and Rey were forcibly ushered to a waiting Capitol car. The ride to train station was short, and Poe refused to look out the window, or over at Rey, who sniffled in the corner of the car, for the entirety of the drive. It was too good to be true, after all, that they were escaping, that Rey wouldn’t be punished, that they were going home.

He wouldn’t fail now, not when they were so close to freedom, or, at least, the closest they could ever get to freedom.

***

The celebration in Four was short, stilted. Rey spoke briefly, but the crowd didn’t respond to her words; the curfew was still in effect, so the citizens were forced to return home within thirty minutes of the speech’s beginning. 

No feast, just a toast.

Kes didn’t attend, and neither did Obi-Wan. 

His father hugged him when he crossed the threshold of their home though, and Poe found himself oddly relieved to see his father’s face.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell him what they’d risked in the Capitol; he couldn’t tell his father that he was now the only real bargaining chip that Snoke had left against Poe, now that Rey was solidified in the Capitol’s heart after her performance.

He had a feeling his father already knew.

***

A week after they’d returned, Poe directed his boat out to the farthest reach of the cove, the breeze ruffling his hair, which finally felt free of the products the Capitol used to tame his curls.

He rubbed at his chin, where stubble was thankfully growing back -- because the Victory Tour was so short, only three weeks, he’d been allowed to shave, and hadn’t been doused in the chemical that stunted hair growth for months on end. 

There had been more bugs than usual on his boat this morning, which he took as a comfort and not a curse. If he couldn’t find them, that would mean they’d gotten better at hiding them, not that they’d given up on surveillance of his brief moments of privacy. Still, he’d scoured the boat for them, finding them in cracks in the cabin’s walls, tucked under the railing, and one even hiding under a loose board in the deck. He’d nailed the board back down, chucked the bugs into the water after crushing them, and set sail.

Poe kept his eyes on the water until he’d found what he was looking for: Rey, swimming in the distance, the sun catching on the ocean around her. He smiled to himself, marveling as usual at the effortless way she moved through the waves. A less confident swimmer would drown. But Rey had been born for the water, and Poe had been born to be her shore, a place she could always swim to for safety.

No matter what the Capitol did to him or took away from them, he’d be there for her, safe in the parts of himself Snoke and the rest of them could never touch. 

He waved a hand, and she changed course, heading for the boat. Poe threw the anchor overboard. The waves were gentler here, out at the edge of the cove, the land curving on either side of them as though holding them safely in its cradle. He smiled while she swam, resting his elbows on the side of the boat.

Rey reached him in no time at all, and then he was hauling her onto the boat easily, the water flowing backwards into the sea while he stole its favorite nymph for the time being.

“What story do you want to hear today?” He joked, tossing her a towel, which she used to dry her hair and arms. 

“The one about the sailor who was so handsome, he seduced the sea itself,” Rey said with a strange smile.

“I don’t know that one.” Poe quirked his brow and leaned back against the wall of the boat’s cabin. 

“He was very handsome.” Rey smiled coyly and wrapped the towel around herself. She still wore the simple slip to swim, an oddity for how cold the water was. “And sang so beautifully, all the gulls would stop to listen.”

“Oh?”

“And he fell in love with a fish.” Rey tilted her head back and extended her arms to the sun, smiling peacefully while she spoke. “And the fish fell in love with him. But he always told her she was a mermaid.”

“Maybe I do know that one.” Poe smiled at her when she looked back at him, and she crossed the deck easily, her steps not faltering while the boat rocked underneath her feet. 

“It’s my favorite one,” she confessed, as though sharing a secret.

“Mine too.”

He wouldn’t be able to say, later, if she kissed him first, or if he kissed her. But they stood together for a long time, Rey drying in the sunlight, Poe’s arms wrapped around her while she soaked his sweater and pants with her cool, wet clothing and limbs. 

Rey’s lips trailed along his jaw tentatively, and he still smiled, his hand cradling the back of her head with a tenderness he thought he’d forgotten. 

“I love you,” she murmured into the space under his earlobe, and Poe shivered, although the day was only getting warmer. 

“I love you too, Sunshine.” They traded kisses lazily, but then Rey bit his lip. 

***

_ Leda. Leto. Europa. Semele. Eurídice. Echo. _

Poe should have protested that it wasn’t safe, to give her love to him. Too many tragedies laid out in front of them as evidence of the danger.

_ Persephone. Ariadne. Andromeda. _

Rey would have had too many points to counter his argument for him to win, however.

And at the end of it all, Poe was tired of fighting how much he loved her.

***

“I still want you,” Rey whispered when they paused for breath, her forehead pressed against his, his back to the sun-warmed wall of the cabin. “I want you all the time.”

It was heady, to be wanted by Rey. 

It was the only time he could recall being  _ flattered  _ that someone wanted him. The only time he thought it felt  _ good  _ to be wanted.

“I want you too,” he admitted. “Always.”

***

_ Forgive me,  _ he prayed to any and all of the deities, forbidden, forgotten, and no doubt shaking their heads at his foolishness.  _ Forgive me for this,  _ he prayed as he took Rey by the hand and led her into the cabin.

***

He’d already found the bugs that morning, but he did one last careful sweep that yielded nothing. 

“I don’t care if they--” Rey cut herself off with a shrug, her hands tracing a pattern on his chest when he returned to hold her. “I don’t. It will still be ours.”

“I care,” Poe countered, and for once, she didn’t argue with him. She only nodded and pressed a sweet kiss that tasted of forgiveness to his mouth. 

“What do you want?” Rey asked nervously, her hands hesitant and floating over his body. He tugged the sweater off without waiting any longer, leaving his undershirt on. 

“You,” he said honestly, tugging her close and kissing her again, his hands tangling in her wet hair. “Want you, all the time.” She smiled at his echo of her words, and let her own hands trail delicately over his shoulders.

“I don’t,” she released a breath and pulled away from a second, pressing fingers to his temple. “I don’t want to do anything to you that  _ they  _ do--”

“You won’t.” Poe shook his head and caught her hands, kissing the cold tips of her fingers. “You won’t - just -” She clearly needed direction -- “Don’t hold me down. Please. Ever. Don’t -- don’t call me honey. Don’t bite” -- Rey made a noise like an angry cat, and it honestly made him laugh -- “If it hurts. Tell me.”

“You do the same,” Rey said firmly, studying his face for honesty. He nodded and smiled. “That was what you  _ don’t  _ want. What do you want?”

“I want,” he cleared his throat nervously and then reached out with trembling, unsure hands to tug at the thin silk she wore, “I want you to take this off.”

***

Galatea was supposed to have been so beautiful it made Pygmalion weep, for he had carved her to be precisely what he wanted, the most beautiful woman imaginable.

Poe thought privately that Pygmalion might not have wept, if he’d ever seen Rey Kenobi.

***

His hands didn’t grow any more sure as he trailed them along Rey’s body, her muscles jumping with nerves when he passed over her stomach delicately.

“Sorry,” he laughed shyly, and she shook her head.

“Don’t be sorry.” They lay down on the bed side by side, Rey naked, Poe still wearing his shirt and his pants, and Rey let him kiss her while he worked up the courage to be as naked as she was.

First, the pants; she watched with wide eyes as he kicked them down his legs and off his feet, shoving his boxers down for good measure before he lost the nerve. 

“Oh.” She studied his cock with what could be described as attentive interest before nodding, her cheeks pink. “That’s. Impressive.”

Poe huffed another laugh, ducking his head; he only lifted it when Rey nuzzled in for a kiss.

It was comforting not to push past this part, and it was comforting to have Rey’s hands on his body. She didn’t question when he left his eyes open at times, or when he paused in kissing her to breathe slowly, trying to control the storm inside of himself, of anxiety and regret and arousal, tangled together in a maelstrom he couldn’t quite escape.

“This is good,” Rey encouraged him, trailing the backs of her fingers along his arm. “This is enough.”

“I want you,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “I don’t - I can’t wait any longer.”

To prove his point, he sat up and discarded his shirt, lying back down to kiss her thoroughly again, their bodies pressed together in interesting places - their knees touching, their feet tangled, their hands entwined, the soft-sharp peaks of her nipples poking into his own bare chest.

“I love you,” Poe marveled, leaning down to kiss, then suck on one rosy nipple carefully, salt still drying to her skin.

“If you want to stop, even if just for a minute.” Rey shivered and then keened, threading her fingers through his hair as he continued his work at her breast. “Say so. We’ll stop.”

“I love you,” he repeated, his hand at her small waist to push her onto her back. He kissed between her breasts and along her stomach, his cock aching at the way she arched and trembled under his hands, something possessive and great and terrible rising in him that this was  _ his,  _ this was  _ theirs,  _ the Capitol could never --

The Capitol had no place here, he reminded himself as he dipped his tongue into Rey’s navel, causing her to squeak and clutch at his hair again. Not in this bed, with scratchy sheets and a thin mattress that did nothing to quell the motion of the waves underneath them. Not with Rey’s soft moans and sighs filling the cabin deliriously, making Poe feel fifty feet tall, when all he’d ever been made to feel by sex was insignificant and small. 

With a nod and gasp of permission, Poe slipped a hand between Rey’s legs. With another whispered question and moaned reply, he ducked his head down as well.

***

For all his years of imagining this, Poe was pleased to discover he was right -

Rey Kenobi did taste like the sea.

***

“Can I--” Rey grabbed at him, eyes glazed and cheeks flushed, when he returned to kiss her hip bone, her rib cage, her sternum, her jaw. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and kissed her, his tongue slipping between her lips, which fell open with a surprised moan at the taste of herself. 

Her hand trailed down to his hip, where it waited, and tapped anxiously as though in code.

“Touch you?” She asked with a deepening of her blush. Poe nodded, open-mouthed in wonder, staring down at Rey, whose hair fanned out around her like a halo while she wrapped a hand around him and stroked wonderingly.

It was a little too dry to be perfect, but it was a reminder that this was  _ real,  _ this was undesigned, uncontrolled, and Poe moaned louder than he ever had for show. 

“Wait,” he whispered, embarrassed. “I want - do you want -”

“Oh.” Rey pulled a hand away and stared up at him. “Yes.”

He smiled and kissed her again, reveling in the softness of her hands on his back while she held him to her. 

“Are you sure?” He whispered, right as he guided himself in place, twitching from the heat and promise that lay before him. 

“I love you. Of course I’m sure.” She smiled up at him and bent one of her legs so that it wrapped around his waist, bringing him even closer to where the heat of her radiated out, surrounding him and blocking him from whatever lingering anxiety he might feel. 

“This might hurt.” Poe shifted nervously, remembering his own first few times - but this was  _ different  _ and he wasn’t going to think about that, not here, not with Rey sighing and soft against him. 

“It won’t.” Rey leaned up to kiss him and then settled back against the pillows, smug at his dumbstruck look. “If you’re sure?”

“So sure.” Poe nodded and then slipped once, twice, against her, making her shiver and hold him tighter; then, he pushed in, and they breathed in at the same time.

***

Despite all his years of loving stories, a lifetime of collecting them and retelling them and framing them in a way that he could better understand his own life, there wasn’t a single story that came to mind for Poe to compare  _ this  _ to.

Later, he’d try to think back on it as a narrative, as a story that began and ended, but no words he could summon would be able to match what it was to be with someone wholly, someone who loved him, and trusted him, who he loved and trusted in return.

All he knew, and all he’d ever be able to think about, was being lost and found at the same time, completely at Rey’s mercy, completely forgiven, and completely aware that this was, perhaps, the first time his body had felt completely  _ his  _ \-- and yet, completely hers, too.

***

After, they lay together in the bed, Rey curled up to his chest, her ear pressed against his heart, her fingers tapping lightly against his bicep. 

With a smile, he realized that she was tapping out the rhythm of his heartbeat, taking it in and transforming it into something of her own creation; it made sense, after all, as his heart beat mainly because of her.

“I love you,” he wondered aloud, the words as magic and intoxicating as they’d ever been. 

“Endlessly,” Rey agreed, turning her head slightly to press her lips into his chest. 

The ocean rocked underneath them as steadily as ever, lulling them both into a much-needed, fully earned rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woke up this morning and then randomly wrote 10000 words of this even though I'm positive only like ten people care about it at this point. _Shrug_
> 
> There's more planned, of course, but it's been hard to be shouting into a void, so I feel like this is a decent stopping point.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
